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CONGRESS   OF   ARTS  AND   SCIENCE 

UNIVERSAL  EXPOSITION   ST.  LOUIS   1904 


IN  EIGHT  VOLUMES 
VOLUME  II 


CONGRESS   OF 
ARTS    AND    SCIENCE 

UNIVERSAL  EXPOSITION,  ST.  LOUIS,  1904 

EDITED  BY 

HOWAKD  J.  KOGERS,  A.M.,  LL.D. 

DIBECTOK  OF   CONGRESSES 

VOLUME   II 

HISTORY  OF  POLITICS  AND   ECONOMICS 

HISTORY   OF  LAW 

HISTORY   OF   RELIGION 


BOSTON  AND  NEW  YORK 
HOUGHTON,  MIFFLIN  AND   COMPANY 

1906 


COPYRIGHT    1906   BY   HOUGHTON   MirFLIN    &    CO. 
ALL    RIGHTS    RESERVED 

Published  March  7906 


ORGANIZATION  OF  THE  CONGRESS 


PRESIDENT  OF  THE  EXPOSITION: 
HON.  DAVID   R.  FRANCIS,  A.M.,  LL.D. 

DIRECTOR  OF  CONGRESSES: 

HOWARD  J.   ROGERS,  A.M.,  LL.D. 

Universal  Exposition,  1904. 


ADMINISTRATIVE  BOARD 

NICHOLAS  MURRAY   BUTLER,  Ph.D.,  LL.D. 

President  of  Columbia  University,  Chairman. 

WILLIAM   R.   HARPER,   Ph.D.,  LL.D. 

President  of  the  University  of  Chicago. 

R.   H.  JESSE,   Ph.D.,  LL.D. 

President  of  the  University  of  Missouri. 

HENRY   S.   PRITCHETT,   Ph.D.,  LL.D. 
President  of  the  Massachusetts  Institute  of  Technology. 

HERBERT   PUTNAM,  Litt.D.,  LL.D. 
Librarian  of  Congress. 

FREDERICK  J.   V.   SKIFF,  A.M. 
Director  of  the  Field  Columbian  Museum. 


OFFICERS  OF  THE   CONGRESS 

.PRESIDENT: 
SIMON   NEWCOMB,   Ph.D.,  LL.D. 

Retired  Professor  U.  S.  N. 

VICE-PRESIDENTS: 

HUGO   MUNSTERBERG,   Ph.D.,  LL.D. 

Professor  of  Psychology  in  Harvard  University. 

ALBION  W.   SMALL,  Ph.D.,   LL.D. 

Professor  of  Sociology  in  the  University  of  Chicago. 


355934 


TABLE  OF  CONTENTS 


DIVISION  B  — HISTORICAL  SCIENCE 

Chairman's  Address. 

The  Variety  and  Unity  of  History 3 

WooDROW  Wilson 

DEPARTMENT  III  —  POLITICAL  AND  ECONOMIC   HISTORY 

The  Science  of  History  in  the  Nineteenth  Century 23 

William  Milliqan  Sloane 

The  Conception  and  Methods  of  History 40 

James  Harvey  Robinson 

Sections  A  and  B  —  History  op  Greece,  Rome,  and  Asia. 

The  Expansion  of  Greek  History 56 

John  Pentland  Mahaffy 

Problems  in  Roman  History  69 

Ettore  Pais 

A  General  Survey  of  the  History  of  Asia,  loith  Special  Reference  to  China 

and  the  Far  East 86 

Henri  Cordier 

Supplementary  Paper 108 

Section  C  —  Medieval  History. 

Historical  Development  and  Present  Character  of  the  Science  of  History      .     Ill 
Karl  Gotthart  Lamprecht 

The  Present  Problems  of  Medieval  History 125 

George  Burton  Adams 

Supplementary  Papers 138 

Section  D  —  Modern  History  of  Europe. 

The  Place  of  Modern  History  in  the  Perspective  of  Knowledge    .        .        .142 

John  B.  Bury 

Historical  Synthesis 153 

Charles  W.  Colby 

Section  E  —  History  of  America. 

The  Rehiion  of  American  History  to  Other  Fields  of  Historical  Study        .     172 
Edward  Gaylord  Bourne 

Problems  in  American  History 183 

Frederick  Jackson  Turner 

Supplementdry  Papers 195 


viii  TABLE   OF   CONTENTS 

Section  F  —  History  of  Economic  Institutions. 

Economic  History  in  Relation  to  Kindred  Sciences 199 

Johannes  Evast  Conrad 

The  Present  Problems  in  the  Economic  Interpretation  of  History         .         .215 
Simon  Nelson  Patten 

Bibliography:  Department  of  History 229 

DEPARTMENT  IV  — HISTORY  OF  LAW 

History  of  Law 241 

Emlin  McClain 

Characteristics  of  the  Common  Law 271 

Nathan  Abbott 

Section  A  —  History  of  Roman  Law. 

The  Relations  of  Roman  Law  to  the  Other  Historical  Sciences     .         .         .291 
William  Hepburn  Buckler 

Problems  of  Roman  Legal  History     .         .         .         .         .         .         •         .315 

MuNROE  Smith 

Section  B  —  History  of  Common  Law. 

The  History  of  the  Common  Law .     331 

Simeon  Eben  Baldwin 

The  Problems  of  To-day  for  the  History  of  the  Common  Law      .         .         .     350 
John  Henry  Wiqmore 

Section  C  —  Comparative  Law. 

The  New  Japanese  Civil  Code,  as  Material  for  the  Study  of  Comparative 

Jurisprudence 367 

NOBUSHIGE   HoZUMI 

The  Latest  Organization  of  Popular  Suffrage     .        .        .        .         .         .417 

Alfred  Nerincx 

References  suggested  on  the  History  of  Law 426 

Bibliography  on  the  History  of  Law 427 

DEPARTMENT  VIII  — HISTORY  OF  RELIGION 

Chairman's  Address 431 

William  Eliot  Griffis 

The  History  of  Religions  in  the  Nineteenth  Century 432 

George  Foot  Moore 

Fundamental  Conceptions  and  Methods  of  the  History  of  Religion      .        .     443 
Nathaniel  Schmidt 

Section  A  —  Brahmanism  and  Buddhism. 

The Melations  of  the  Religions  of  Ancient  India  to  the  Science  of  Religion    .    467 
Hermann  Oldenberg 


TABLE    OF   CONTENTS  ix 

Brahmanical  Riddles  and  the  Origin  of  Theosophy 481 

Maurice  Bloompield 

Short  Paper 493 

Section  B  —  Mohammedism. 

The  Progress  of  Islamic  Science  in  the  Last  Three  Decades         .        .        .    497 
Ignaz  Goldziher 

The  Problems  of  Muhammadanism 518 

Duncan  Black  Macdonald 

Section  C  —  Old  Testament. 

Old  Testament  Science .         .     537 

James  Frederick  McCurdy 

The  Relations  of  Old  Testament  Science  to  the  Allied  Departments  and  to 

Science  in  General     .         .         .         .         .         .         .         .         .         .551 

Karl  Ferdinand  Reinhard  Budde 

Section  D  —  New  Testament. 

Chairman's  Address 567 

Andrew  C.  Zenos 

The  Relations  of  New  Testament  Science  to  Kindred  Sciences     .         .         .     569 
Benjamin  Wisner  Bacon 

The  Present  Problems  of  New  Testament  Study 585 

Ernest  DeWitt  Burton 

Supplementary  Papers 616 

Section  E  —  History  op  the  Christian  Church. 

The  Relation  between  Ecclesiastical  and  General  History    .         .         .         .621 
Karl  Gustav  Adolf  Harnack 

The  Progress  of  Ecclesiastical  History,  especially  Ancient,  during  the  Nine- 
teenth Century 636 

Jean  Reville 

Supplementary  Paper 649 

Bibliography:  History  of  Religion 650 

CONTENTS  OF  SERIES         ....  ....     662 


DIVISION  B 
HISTORICAL  SCIENCE 


DIVISION  B  — HISTORICAL  SCIENCE 

{Hall  3,  September  20,  10  a.  m.) 


THE  VARIETY  AND   UNITY  OF  HISTORY 

BY    WOODROW   WILSON 

[Woodrow  Wilson,  President  of  Princeton  University,  b.  Staunton,  Virginia, 
December  28,  1856.  A.B.  Princeton  University,  1879;  A.M.  1882.  Ph.D. 
Johns  Hopkins,  1886.  Litt.D.  Yale,  1901.  LL.D.  Wake  Forest  College,  1887; 
Tulane  University,  1897;  Johns  Hopkins,  1901; 'Rutgers  College,  1902;  Uni- 
versity of  Pennsylvania,  1903;  Brown  University,  1903.  Post-graduate,  Uni- 
versity of  Virginia  and  Johns  Hopkins  University.  Associate  Professor  History 
and  Political  Economy,  Bryn  Mawr  College,  1885-88.  Professor  History  and 
Political  Economy,  Wesleyan  University,  1888-90.  Professor  Jurisprudence 
and  Politics,  Princeton  University,  since  1890.  Member  American  Institute  of 
Arts  and  I^etters,  American  Historical  Association,  American  Economic  Asso- 
ciation, American  Academy  Political  and  Social  Science,  American  Philosophi- 
cal Society,  Southern  History  Association.  Corresponding  Member  Massachu- 
setts Historical  Society.  Author  of  Congressional  Government;  An  Old  Master 
and  Other  Essays;  George  Washington;  A  History  of  the  American  People.] 

We  have  seen  the  dawn  and  the  early  morning  hours  of  a  new  age 
in  the  writing  of  history,  and  the  morning  is  now  broadening  about 
us  into  day.  When  the  day  is  full  we  shall  see  that  minute  research 
and  broad  synthesis  are  not  hostile  but  friendly  methods,  cooperating 
toward  a  common  end  which  neither  can  reach  alone.  No  piece  of 
history  is  true  when  set  apart  to  itself,  divorced  and  isolated.  It  is 
part  of  an  intricately  various  whole,  and  must  needs  be  put  in  its 
place  in  the  netted  scheme  of  events  to  receive  its  true  color  and 
estimation;  and  yet  it  must  be  itself  individually  studied  and  con- 
trived if  the  whole  is  not  to  be  weakened  by  its  imperfection.  Whole 
and  part  are  of  one  warp  and  woof.  I  think  that  we  are  in  a  temper 
to  realize  this  now,  and  to  come  to  happy  terms  of  harmony  with 
regard  to  the  principles  and  the  objects  which  we  shall  hold  most 
dear  in  the  pursuit  of  our  several  tasks. 

I  know  that  in  some  quarters  there  is  still  a  fundamental  difference 
of  opinion  as  to  the  aim  and  object  of  historical  writing.  Some  regard 
history  as  a  mere  record  of  experience,  a  huge  memorandum  of  events, 
of  the  things  done,  attempted,  or  neglected  in  bringing  the  world  to 
the  present  stage  and  posture  of  its  affairs,  —  a  book  of  precedents 
to  which  to  turn  for  instruction,  correction,  and  reproof.  Others 
regard  it  as  a  book  of  interpretation,  rather,  in  which  to  study  motive 
and  the  methods  of  the  human  spirit,  the  ideals  that  elevate  and  the 
ideals  that  debase;  from  which  we  are  to  derive  assistance,  not  so 
much  in  action  as  in  thought;  a  record  of  evolution,  in  which  we 
are  not  likely  to  find  repetitions,  and  in  reading  which  our  inquiry 
should  be  of  processes,  not  of  precedents.    The  two  views  are  not, 


4  HISTORICAL  SCIENCE 

upon  analysis,  so  far  apart  as  they  at  first  appear  to  be.  I  think  that 
we  shall  all  agree,  upon  reflection  and  after  a  little  explanation  of 
the  terms  we  use,  that  what  we  seek  in  history  is  the  manifestation 
and  development  of  the  human  spirit,  whether  we  seek  it  in  precedents 
or  in  processes. 

All  of  the  many  ways  of  writing  history  may  be  reduced  to  two. 
There  are  those  who  write  history,  as  there  are  those  who  read  it, 
only  for  the  sake  of  the  story.  Their  study  is  of  plot,  their  narrative 
goes  by  ordered  sequence  and  seeks  the  dramatic  order  of  events; 
men  appear,  in  their  view,  always  in  organized  society,  under  leaders 
and  subject  to  comrfton  forces  making  this  way  or  that;  details  are 
for  the  intensification  of  the  impression  made  by  the  main  move- 
ment in  mass;  there  is  the  unity  and  the  epic  progress  of  The  Decline 
and  Fall,  or  the  crowded  but  always  ordered  composition  of  one  of 
Macaulay's  canvases;  cause  and  effect  move  obvious  and  majestic 
upon  the  page,  and  the  story  is  of  the  large  force  of  nations.  This  is 
history  embodied  in  "events,"  centering  in  the  large  transactions 
of  epochs  or  of  peoples.  It  is  history  in  one  kind,  upon  which  there 
are  many  variants.  History  in  the  other  kind  devotes  itself  to  analy- 
sis, to  interpretation,  to  the  illumination  of  the  transactions  of  which 
it  treats  by  lights  let  in  from  every  side.  It  has  its  own  standard  of 
measurement  in  reckoning  transactions  great  or  small,  bases  its 
assessments,  not  upon  the  numbers  involved  or  the  noise  and  reputa- 
tion of  the  day  itself  in  which  they  occurred,  so  much  as  upon  their 
intrinsic  significance,  seen  now  in  after  days,  as  an  index  of  what  the 
obscure  men  of  the  mass  thought  and  endured,  indications  of  the 
forces  making  and  to  be  made,  the  intimate  biography  of  daily 
thought.  Here  interest  centres,  not  so  much  in  what  happened  as  in 
what  underlay  the  happening;  not  so  much  in  the  tides  as  in  the 
silent  forces  that  lifted  them.  Economic  history  is  of  this  quality, 
and  the  history  of  religious  belief,  and  the  history  of  literature,  where 
it  traces  the  map  of  opinion,  whether  in  an  age  of  certainty  or  in  an 
age  of  doubt  and  change. 

The  interest  of  history  in  both  kinds  is  essentially  the  same.  Each 
in  its  kind  is  a  record  of  the  human  spirit.  In  one  sort  we  seek  that 
spirit  manifested  in  action,  where  effort  is  organized  upon  the  great 
scale  and  leadership  displayed.  It  stirs  our  pulses  to  be  made  aware 
of  the  mighty  forces,  whether  of  exaltation  or  of  passion,  that  play 
through  what  men  have  done.  In  the  other  sort  of  history  we  seek 
the  spirit  of  man  manifested  in  conception,  in  the  quiet  tides  of 
thought  and  emotion  making  up  the  minor  bays  and  inlets  of  our 
various  life  of  complex  circumstance,  in  the  private  accumulation  of 
events  which  lie  far  away  from  the  sound  of  drum  or  trumpet  and 
constitute  no  part  of  the  pomp  of  great  affairs.  The  interest  of  human 
history  is  that  it  is  human.   It  is  a  tale  that  moves  and  quickens  us. 


THE   VARIETY   AND   UNITY   OF   HISTORY  5 

We  do  not  approach  it  as  we  approach  the  story  of  nature.  The 
records  of  geology,  stupendous  and  venerable  as  they  are,  written 
large  and  small,  with  infinite  variety,  upon  the  faces  of  great  moun- 
tains and  of  shadowed  canons  or  in  the  line  shale  of  the  valley, 
buried  deep  in  the  frame  of  the  globe  or  lying  upon  the  surface,  do 
not  hold  us  to  the  same  vivid  attention.  Human  history  has  no  such 
muniment  towers,  no  such  deep  and  ancient  secrets,  no  such  mighty 
successions  of  events  as  those  which  the  geologist  explores;  but  the 
geologist  does  not  stir  us  as  the  narrator  of  even  the  most  humble 
dealings  of  our  fellow  men  can  stir  us.  And  it  is  so  with  the  rest  of 
the  history  of  nature.  Even  the  development  of  animal  life,  though 
we  deem  its  evolution  part  of  ours,  seems  remote,  impersonal,  no 
part  of  any  affair  that  we  can'  touch  with  controlling  impulse  or 
fashion  to  our  pleasure.  It  is  the  things  which  we  determine  which 
most  deeply  concern  us,  our  voluntary  life  and  action,  the  release  of 
our  spirits  in  thought  and  act.  If  the  philosophers  were  to  convince 
us  that  there  is  in  fact  no  will  of  our  own  in  any  matter,  our  interest 
in  the  history  of  mankind  would  slacken  and  utterly  change  its  face. 
The  ordered  sequences  of  nature  are  outside  of  us,  foreign  to  our 
wills,  but  these  things  of  our  own  touch  us  nearly. 

It  is  the  honorable  distinction  of  historical  writing  in  our  day 
that  it  has  become  more  broadly  and  intimately  human.  The  instinct 
of  the  time  is  social  rather  than  political.  We  would  know  not  merely 
how  law  and  government  proceed  but  also  how  society  breeds  its 
forces,  how  these  play  upon  the  individual,  and  how  the  individual 
affects  them.  Law  and  government  are  but  one  expression  of  the 
life  of  society.  They  are  regulative  rather  than  generative,  and  his- 
torians of  our  day  have  felt  that  in  writing  political  and  legal  history 
they  were  upon  the  surface  only,  not  at  the  heart  of  affairs.  The 
minute  studies  of  the  specialist  have  been  brought  about,  not  merely 
by  the  natural  exigencies  of  the  German  seminar  method  of  instruc- 
tion, not  merely  by  the  fact  that  the  rising  tide  of  doctors'  theses 
has  driven  would-be  candidates  for  degrees  to  the  high  and  dry 
places,  after  all  the  rich  lowland  had  been  covered,  but  also  by  a  very 
profound  and  genuine  change  of  view  on  the  part  of  the  masters  of 
history  themselves  with  regard  to  what  should  be  the  distinctive 
material  of  their  study.  Before  our  modern  day  of  specialization 
there  was  virtually  no  history  of  religion,  or  of  law,  or  of  literature,  or 
of  language,  or  of  art.  Fragments  of  these  things  were,  of  course, 
caught  in  the  web  of  the  old  narratives,  but  the  great  writers  of  the 
older  order  looked  at  them  with  attention  only  when  they  emerged, 
gross  and  obvious,  upon  the  surface  of  affairs.  Law  was  part  of  the 
movement  of  politics  or  of  the  patent  economic  forces  that  lay  near 
the  interests  of  government.  Religion  was  not  individual  belief,  but 
as  it  were  the  politics  of  an  institution,  of  the  church,  which  was  but 


6  HISTORICAL  SCIENCE 

the  state  itself  in  another  guise.  Literature  concerned  them  only  as 
it  became  the  wind  of  opinion  beating  upon  the  laboring  ship  of 
state,  or  when  some  sudden  burst  of  song  gave  a  touch  of  imaginative 
glory  to  the  domestic  annals  of  the  nation  which  was  their  theme. 
Art  came  within  their  view  only  when  it  was  part  of  the  public  work 
of  some  Pericles  or  became  itself  part  of  the  intricate  web  of  politics, 
as  in  the  Italian  states  of  the  Renaissance.  Language  concerned 
them  not  at  all,  except  as  its  phrases  once  and  again  spoke  the  tem- 
per of  an  epoch  or  its  greater  variations  betokened  the  birth  of 
new  nations. 

And  all  this  because  their  interest  was  in  affairs  of  state,  in  the 
organized  and  coordinated  efforts  of  the  body  politic,  in  opinions 
and  influences  which  moved  men  in  the  mass  and  governed  the  actions 
of  kings  and  their  ministers  of  state  at  home  and  abroad.  In  brief, 
their  interest  was  in  "  events."  It  is  curious  and  instructive  to  examine 
what  we  mean  by  that  much-used  word.  We  mean  always,  I  take  it, 
some  occurrence  of  large  circumstance,  —  no  private  affair  transacted 
in  a  corner,  but  something  observed  and  open  to  the  public  view, 
noticeable  and  known,  —  and  not  fortuitous,  either,  but  planned, 
concerted.  There  can,  properly  speaking,  be  no  "  event "  without 
organized  effort:  it  is  not  a  thing  of  the  individual.  Literature  is 
excluded,  by  definition,  and  art,  and  language,  and  much  of  religion 
that  is  grounded  in  unobserved  behef,  and  all  the  obscure  pressure 
of  economic  want.  A  history  of  ''events  "  cannot  be  a  history  of  the 
people;  it  can  only  be  a  history  of  the  life  of  the  body  politic,  of 
the  things  which  statesmen  observe  and  act  upon. 

The  specialist  has  taught  us  that  the  deepest  things  are  often  those 
which  never  spring  to  light  in  events,  and  that  the  breeding-ground 
of  events  themselves  lies  where  the  historian  of  the  state  seldom 
extends  his  explorations.  It  is  not  true  that  a  community  is  merely 
the  aggregate  of  those  who  compose  it.  The  parts  are  so  disposed 
among  us  that  the  minority  governs  more  often  than  the  majority. 
But  influence  and  mastery  are  subtle  things.  They  proceed  from 
forces  which  come  to  the  individual  out  of  the  very  air  he  breathes : 
his  life  is  compounded  as  the  Uves  of  those  about  him  are.  Their  lives 
play  upon  his,  he  knows  not  how,  and  the  opinion  he  enforces  upon 
them  is  already  more  than  half  their  own.  And  so  the  analysis  of  the 
life  of  the  many  becomes  part  of  the  analysis  of  the  power  of  the  few 
—  an  indispensable  part.  It  is  this  that  the  specialist  sees.  He  sees 
more.  He  sees  that  individual  effort  as  well  as  aggregate  must  be 
studied,  the  force  that  is  in  the  man  as  well  as  the  air  that  is  in  the 
community.  The  men  who  give  voice  to  their  age  are  witnesses  to 
more  things  than  they  wot  of. 

Mr.  Ruskin,  in  the  preface  to  the  little  volume  on  Venetian  art 
to  which  he  has  given  the  name  St.  Mark's  Rest,  propounds  a  theory 


THE  VARIETY  AND  UNITY  OF  HISTORY  7 

which  will  illuminate  my  meaning.  "  Great  nations,"  he  says,  "  write 
their  autobiographies  in  three  manuscripts,  —  the  book  of  their 
deeds,  the  book  of  their  words,  and  the  book  of  their  art.  Not  one  of 
these  books  can  be  understood  unless  we  read  the  two  others;  but 
of  the  three  the  only  quite  trustworthy  one  is  the  last.  The  acts  of  a 
nation  may  be  triumphant  by  its  good  fortune;  and  its  words  mighty 
by  the  genius  of  a  few  of  its  children;  but  its  art  only  by  the  general 
gifts  and  common  sympathies  of  the  race.  Again,  the  policy  of  a 
nation  may  be  compelled,  and,  therefore,  not  indicative  of  its  true 
character.  Its  words  may  be  false,  while  yet  the  race  remains  uncon- 
scious of  their  falsehood;  and  no  historian  can  assuredly  detect  the 
hypocrisy.  But  art  is  always  instinctive;  and  the  honesty  or  pre- 
tense of  it  are  therefore  open  to  the  day.  The  Delphic  oracle  may 
or  may  not  have  been  spoken  by  an  honest  priestess,  —  we  cannot 
tell  by  the  words  of  it;  a  liar  may  rationally  believe  them  a  lie,  such 
as  he  would  himself  have  spoken;  and  a  true  man,  with  equal  reason, 
may  believe  them  spoken  in  truth.  But  there  is  no  question  possible 
in  art:  at  a  glance  (when  we  have  learned  to  read),  we  know  the 
religion  of  Angelico  to  be  sincere,  and  of  Titian,  assumed." 

Whether  we  agree  with  all  the  dicta  of  this  interesting  passage 
or  not,  the  main  truth  of  it  is  plain.  It  is  to  be  doubted  whether  the 
"genius  of  a  few  of  its  children"  suffices  to  give  a  nation  place  in 
the  great  annals  of  literature,  and  literary  critics  would  doubtless 
maintain  that  the  book  of  a  nation's  words  is  as  naif  and  instinctive 
as  the  book  of  its  art.  Here,  too,  the  sincere  and  natural  is  easily 
to  be  distinguished  ("when  we  have  learned  to  read")  from  the 
sophisticated  and  the  artificial.  Plainly  the  autobiography  of  Ben- 
jamin Franklin  is  separated  by  a  long  age  from  the  autobiography  of 
Benvenuto  Cellini,  and  the  one  is  as  perfect  a  mirror  of  the  faith  of 
the  man  and  the  manner  of  the  age  as  the  other.  But  these  questions 
are  not  of  the  present  point.  Undoubtedly  the  book  of  a  nation's  art 
and  the  book  of  its  words  must  be  read  along  with  the  book  of  its 
deeds  if  its  life  and  character  are  to  be  comprehended  as  a  whole; 
and  another  book,  besides,  —  the  book  of  its  material  life,  its  foods, 
its  fashions,  its  manufactures,  its  temperatures  and  seasons.  In  each 
of  these  great  books  the  historian  looks  for  the  same  thing:  the  life 
of  the  day,  the  impulses  that  underlie  government  and  all  achieve- 
ment, all  art  and  all  literature,  as  well  as  all  statesmanship. 

I  do  not  say  that  the  specialists  who  have  so  magnified  their  office 
in  our  day  have  been  conscious  of  this  ultimate  synthesis.  Few  of 
them  have  cared  for  it  or  believed  in  it.  They  have  diligently  spent 
their  intensive  labor  upon  a  few  acres  of  ground,  with  an  exemplary 
singleness  of  mind,  and  have  displayed,  the  while,  very  naively,  the 
provincial  spirit  of  small  farmers.  But  a  nation  is  as  rich  as  its  sub- 
jects, and  this  intensive  farming  has  accumulated  a  vast  store  of 


8  HISTORICAL  SCIENCE 

excellent  food-stuffs.  No  doubt  the  work  would  have  been  better 
done  if  it  had  been  done  in  a  more  catholic  spirit,  with  wider  sym- 
pathies, amidst  horizons.  The  broader  the  comprehension  the  more 
intelligent  the  insight.  But  we  must  not  ask  for  all  things  in  a  gen- 
eration or  expect  our  own  perfection  by  any  other  way  than  the 
famiUar  processes  of  development. 

Perhaps  we  are  near  enough  the  time  of  synthesis  and  coordination 
to  see  at  least  the  organic  order  and  relationship  of  the  several  special 
branches  of  historical  inquiry  which  have  been  grouped  in  this 
Division  of  our  Congress.  All  history  has  society  as  its  subject-mat- 
ter: what  we  ponder  and  explore  is,  not  the  history  of  men,  but  the 
history  of  man.  And  yet  our  themes  do  not  all  lie  equally  close  to 
the  organic  processes  of  society.  Those  processes  are,  of  course,  most 
prominent  in  political  and  economic  history,  least  prominent,  per- 
haps, in  the  history  of  language.  I  venture  to  suggest  that  the 
organic  order  is:  Politics,  economics,  religion,  law,  literature,  art, 
language.  So  far  as  the  question  affects  religion  and  law,  I  must 
admit  that  I  am  not  clear  which  of  the  two  ought  to  take  precedence, 
—  in  modern  history,  certainly  law;  but  most  history  is  not  modern, 
and  in  that  greater  part  which  is  not  modern  clearly  religion  over- 
crows law  in  the  organic,  social  process. 

I  know  that  the  word  religion,  in  this  connection  as  in  most  others, 
is  of  vague  and  mixed  significance,  covering  a  multitude  of  sins;  but 
so  far  as  my  present  point  is  concerned,  it  is  easy  of  clarification. 
Religion,  as  the  historian  handles  it,  involves  both  a  history  of  insti- 
tutions, of  the  church,  and  a  history  of  opinion.  As  a  history  of 
opinion  it  perhaps  lies  no  nearer  the  organic  processes  of  society 
than  does  the  history  of  literature;  but  from  the  beginning  of 
recorded  events  until  at  any  rate  the  breaking  up  of  foundations 
which  accompanied  and  followed  the  French  Revolution,  it  concerns 
the  church  as  an  institution  as  definitely  as  the  history  of  politics, 
with  its  various  records  of  shifting  opinion,  concerns  the  state,  and 
the  organic  life  of  the  body  politic.  In  such  a  view,  religion  must 
take  precedence  of  law  in  the  organic  order  of  our  topics.  From  the 
remotest  times  of  classical  history,  when  church  and  state,  priest 
and  judge,  were  hardly  distinguishable,  through  the  confused  Middle 
Age,  in  which  popes  were  oftentimes  of  more  authority  than  kings 
and  emperors,  down  to  the  modern  days,  when  priests  and  primates 
were,  by  very  virtue  of  their  office,  chief  politicians  in  the  plot  of 
public  policy,  the  church  has  unquestionably  played  a  part  second 
only  to  the  state  itself  in  the  organization  and  government  of  society, 
in  the  framing  of  the  public  life. 

Law  occupies  a  place  singular  and  apart.  Its  character  is  without 
parallel  in  our  list.  It  has  no  life  of  its  0)vn  apart  from  the  life  of  the 
state,  as  religion  has,  or  literature,  or  art,  or  language.    Looked  at 


THE  VARIETY  AND   UNITY   OF  HISTORY  9 

as  the  lawyer  looks  at  it,  it  is  merely  the  voice  of  the  state,  the  body 
of  regulations  set  by  government  to  give  order  to  the  competitive 
play  of  individual  and  social  forces.  Looked  at  from  the  historian's 
point  of  view,  it  consists  of  that  part  of  the  social  thought  and  habit 
which  has  definitely  formed  itself,  which  has  gained  universal  acqui- 
escence and  recognition,  and  which  has  been  given  the  sanction  and 
backing  of  the  state  itself,  a  final  formulation  in  command.  In  either 
case,  whatever  its  origin,  whether  in  the  arbitrary  will  of  the  law- 
maker or  in  the  gradually  disclosed  and  accepted  convenience  of 
society,  it  comes,  not  independently  and  of  itself,  but  through  the 
mouth  of  governors  and  judges,  and  is  itself  a  product  of  the  state. 
But  not  of  politics,  unless  we  speak  of  public  law,  the  smaller  part, 
not  of  private,  the  greater.  The  forces  which  created  it  are  chiefly 
economic,  or  else  social,  bred  amidst  ideas  of  class  and  privilege. 
It  springs  from  a  thousand  fountains.  Statutes  do  not  contain  all  of 
it;  and  statutes  are  themselves,  when  soundly  conceived,  but  gen- 
eralizations of  experience.  The  truth  is  that,  while  law  gets  its 
formulation  and  its  compulsive  sanction  from  the  political  governors 
of  the  state,  its  real  life  and  source  lie  hidden  amidst  all  of  the  vari- 
ous phenomena  which  historians  are  called  upon  to  explore.  It 
belongs  high  in  the  list  I  have  made,  because  it  so  definitely  takes  its 
form  from  the  chief  organ  of  society. 

To  put  literature  before  art  in  the  organic  order  I  have  suggested, 
is  not  to  deny  Mr.  Ruskin's  dictum,  that  art  more  than  literature 
comes  "by  the  general  gifts  and  common  sympathies  of  the  race,"^ 
by  instinct" rather  than  by  deliberation;  it  is  only  to  say  that  more 
of  what  is  passing  through  a  nation's  thought  is  expressed  in  its 
literature  than  in  its  art.  As  a  nation  thinks  so  it  is;  and  the  his- 
torian must  give  to  the  word  literature  a  wider  significance  than 
the  critic  would  vouchsafe.  He  must  think  not  merely  of  that  part 
of  a  nation's  book  of  words  upon  which  its  authors  have  left  the  touch 
of  genius,  the  part  that  has  been  made  immortal  by  the  transfiguring 
magic  of  art,  but  also  of  the  cruder  parts  which  have  served  their 
purpose  and  now  lie  dead  upon  the  page,  —  the  fugitive  and  ephem- 
eral pamphlets,  the  forgotten  controversies,  the  dull,  thin  prose  of 
arguments  long  ago  concluded,  old  letters,  futile  and  neglected 
pleas,  —  whatever  may  seem  to  have  played  through  the  thought  of 
older  days. 

Of  the  history  of  language  I  speak  with  a  great  deal  of  diffidence. 
My  own  study  of  it  was  of  narrow  scope  and  antedated  all  modern 
methods.  But  I  know  what  interest  it  has  for  the  historian  of  life  and 
opinion;  I  know  how  indispensable  its  help  is  in  deciphering  race 
origins  and  race  mixtures;  I  know  what  insight  it  affords  into  the 
processes  of  intellectual  development;  I  know  what  subtle  force  it 
has  hfid  not  only  in  moulding  men's  thoughts,  but  also  their  acts  and 


10  HISTORICAL  SCIENCE 

their  aspirations  after  the  better  things  of  hope  and  purpose.  I  know 
how  it  mirrors  national  as  well  as  individual  genius.  And  I  know  that 
all  of  these  data  of  organic  life,  whether  he  take  them  at  first  hand  or 
at  second,  throw  a  clarifying  light  upon  many  an  obscure  page  of  the 
piled  records  that  lie  upon  the  historian's  table.  I  fancy  that  the 
historian  who  intimately  uses  the  language  of  the  race  and  people  of 
which  he  writes  somehow  gets  intimation  of  its  origin  and  history  into 
his  ear  and  thought  whether  he  be  a  deliberate  student  of  its  develop- 
ment or  not;  but  be  that  as  it  may,  the  historian  of  language  stands 
at  his  elbow,  if  he  will  but  turn  to  him,  with  many  an  enlightening 
fact  and  suggestion  which  he  can  ill  afford  to  dispense  withal.  It  is 
significant,  as  it  is  interesting,  that  the  students  of  language  have 
here  been  definitely  called  into  the  company  of  historians.  May  the 
alliance  be  permanent  and  mutually  profitable! 

My  moral  upon  the  whole  list  is,  that,  separated  though  we  may 
be  by  many  formal  lines  of  separation,  sometimes  insisted  on  with 
much  pedantic  punctilio,  we  are  all  partners  in  a  common  under- 
taking, the  illumination  of  the  thoughts  and  actions  of  men  as  asso- 
ciated in  society,  the  life  of  the  human  spirit  in  this  familiar  theatre  • 
of  cooperative  effort  in  which  we  play,  so  changed  from  age  to  age 
and  yet  so  much  the  same  throughout  the  hurrying  centuries.  Some 
of  the  subjects  here  grouped  may  stand  high  in  the  list  of  organic 
processes,  others  affect  them  less  vigorously  and  directly;  but  all  are 
branches  and  parts  of  the  life  of  society.  In  one  of  the  great  topics  we 
deal  with  there  is,  I  know,  another  element  which  sets  it  quite  apart 
to  a  character  of  its  own.  The  history  of  religion  is  not  merely  the 
history  of  social  forces,  not  merely  the  history  of  institutions  and  of 
opinions.  It  is  also  the  history  of  something  which  transcends  our 
divination,  escapes  our  analysis,  —  the  power  of  God  in  the  life  of 
men.  God  does,  indeed,  deal  with  men  in  society  and  through  social 
forces,  but  he  deals  with  him  also  individually,  as  a  single  soul,  not 
lost  in  society  or  impoverished  of  his  individual  will  and  respons- 
ibility by  his  connection  with  the  fives  of  other  men,  but  himself 
sovereign  and  lonely  in  the  choice  of  his  destiny.  This  singleness 
of  the  human  soul,  this  several  right  and  bounden  duty  of  indi- 
vidual faith  and  choice,  to  be  exercised  oftentimes  in  contempt  and 
defiance  of  society,  is  a  thing  no  man  is  likely  to  overlook  who  has 
noted  the  genesis  of  our  modem  liberty  or  assessed  the  forces  of 
reform  and  regeneration  which  have  lifted  us  to  our  present  enlighten- 
ment; and  it  introduces  into  the  history  of  religion,  at  any  rate  since 
the  day  of  Christ,  the  master  of  free  souls,  an  element  which  plays 
upon  society  like  an  independent  force,  like  no  native  energy  of  its 
own.  This,  nevertheless,  like  all  things  else  that  we  handle,  comes 
into  the  sum  of  our  common  reckoning  when  we  would  analyze  the 
life  of  men  as  manifested  in  the  book  of  their  deeds,  in  the  book  of 


THE  VARIETY  AND  UNITY  OF  HISTORY  11 

their  words,  in  the  book  of  their  art,  or  in  the  book  of  their  material 
arts,  consumption,  needs,  desires;  and  the  product  is  still  organic. 
Men  play  upon  one  another  whether  as  individual  souls  or  as  political 
and  economic  partners. 

What  the  specialist  has  discovered  for  us,  whether  he  has  always 
discovered  it  for  himself  or  not,  is,  that  this  social  product  which  we 
call  history,  though  produced  by  the  interplay  of  forces,  is  not  always 
produced  by  definite  organs  or  by  deliberation:  that,  though  a  joint 
product,  it  is  not  always  the  result  of  concerted  action.  He  has  laid 
bare  to  our  view  particular,  minor,  confluent  but  not  conjoint  influ- 
ences, which,  if  not  individual,  are  yet  not  deliberately  cooperative, 
but  the  unstudied,  ungeneraled,  scattered,  unassembled,  it  may  be 
even  single  and  individual  expression  of  motives,  conceptions,  im- 
pulses, needs,  desires,  which  have  no  place  within  the  ordered,  cor- 
porated  ranks  of  such  things  as  go  by  legislation  or  the  edicts  of 
courts,  by  resolutions  of  synods  or  centred  mandates  of  opinion,  but 
spring  of  their  own  spontaneous  vigor  out  of  the  unhusbanded  soil 
of  unfenced  gardens,  the  crops  no  man  had  looked  for  or  made  ready 
to  reap.  Though  all  soils  from  which  human  products  suck  their  sus- 
tenance must  no  doubt  lie  within  the  general  sovereignty  of  society, 
and  no  man  is  masterless  in  our  feudal  moral  system,  these  things 
which  have  come  to  light  by  the  labor  of  those  who  have  scrutinized 
the  detail  of  our  lives  for  things  neglected  have  not  been  produced 
within  the  immediate  demesnes  of  the  crown.  Historians  who  ponder 
public  policy  only,  and  only  the  acts  of  those  who  make  and  admin- 
ister law  and  determine  the  relationships  of  nations,  like  those  who 
follow  only  the  main  roads  of  literature  and  study  none  but  the 
greater  works  of  art,  have  therefore  passed  them  by  unheeded,  and 
so,  undoubtedly,  have  missed  some  of  the  most  interesting  secrets 
of  the  very  matters  they  had  set  themselves  to  fathom.  Individuals, 
things  happening  obscure  and  in  a  corner,  matters  that  look  like  inci- 
dents, accidents,  and  lie  outside  the  observed  movements  of  affairs, 
are  as  often  as  not  of  the  very  gist  of  controlling  circumstance  and 
will  be  found  when  fully  taken  to  pieces  to  lie  at  the  very  kernel  of 
our  fruit  of  memory. 

I  do  not  mean  to  imply  that  the  work  of  the  specialist  is  now  near 
enough  to  being  accomplished,  his  discoveries  enough  completed, 
enough  advertised,  enough  explained,  his  researches  brought  to  a 
sufficient  point  of  perfection.  I  daresay  he  is  but  beginning  to  come 
into  his  kingdom:  is  just  beginning  to  realize  that  it  is  a  kingdom, 
and  not  merely  a  congeries  of  little  plots  of  ground,  unrelated,  un- 
neighborly  even;  and  that  as  the  years  go  by  and  such  studies  are 
more  and  more  clarified,  more  and  more  wisely  conceived,  this 
minute  and  particular  examination  of  the  records  of  the  human  spirit 
will  yield  a  yet  more  illuminating  body  of  circumstance  and  serve 


12  HISTORICAL  SCIENCE 

more  and  more  directly  and  copiously  for  the  rectification  of  all  his- 
tory. What  I  do  mean,  and  what,  I  daresay,  I  am  put  here  to  pro- 
claim, is,  that  the  day  for  synthesis  has  come;  that  no  one  of  us  can 
safely  go  forward  without  it;  that  labor  in  all  kinds  must  hence- 
forth depend  upon  it,  the  labor  of  the  specialist  no  less  than  the 
labor  of  the  general  historian  who  attempts  the  broader  generaliza- 
tions of  comment  and  narrative. 

In  the  English-speaking  world  we  have  very  recently  witnessed 
two  interesting  and  important  attempts  at  synthesis  by  cooperation 
in  Mr.  H.  D.  Traill's  Social  England  and  Lord  Acton's  Cambridge 
Modern  History,  the  one  now  complete,  the  other  still  in  course  of 
publication.  We  have  had  plans  and  proposals  for  a  somewhat 
similarly  constructed  history  of  the  United  States.  Mr.  Justin 
Winsor's  Narrative  and  Critical  History  of  America  hardly  furnishes 
an  example  of  the  sort  of  work  attempted  in  the  other  series  of  which 
I  have  spoken.  Aside  from  its  lists  and  critical  estimates  of  author- 
ities, it  is  only  history  along  the  ordinary  lines  done  in  monographs, 
covering  topics  every  historian  of  America  has  tried  to  cover.  Mr. 
Traill's  volumes,  as  their  general  title  bears  evidence,  run  upon  a 
wider  field,  whose  boundaries  include  art,  literature,  language,  and 
religion,  as  well  as  law  and  politics.  They  are  broader,  at  any  rate 
in  their  formal  plan,  than  Lord  Acton's  series,  if  we  may  judge  by  the 
three  volumes  of  the  Cambridge  Modern  History  already  published. 
The  chapter-headings  in  the  Cambridge  volumes  smack  much  more 
often  of  politics  and  public  affairs  than  of  the  more  covert  things  of 
private  impulse  and  endeavor.  Their  authors  write  generally,  how- 
ever, with  a  very  broad  horizon  about  them  and  examine  things 
usually  left  unnoted  by  historians  of  an  earlier  age.  The  volumes 
may  fairly  be  taken,  therefore,  to  represent  an  attempt  at  a  com- 
prehensive synthesis  of  modern  historical  studies. 

Both  Mr.  Traill's  volumes  and  the  Cambridge  Modern  History  are 
constructed  upon  essentially  the  same  general  plan.  The  sections  of 
the  one  and  the  chapters  of  the  other  are  monographs  pieced  together 
to  make  a  tessellated  whole.  The  hope  of  the  editors  has  been  to 
obtain,  by  means  of  carefully  formulated  instructions  and  suggestions 
issued  beforehand  to  their  corps  of  associates,  a  series  of  sections 
conceived  and  executed,  in  some  general  sense,  upon  a  common 
model  and  suitable  to  be  worked  in  together  as  parts  of  an  intelligible 
and  consistent  pattern;  and,  so  uniform  has  been  our  training  in 
historical  research  and  composition  in  recent  years,  that  a  most  sur- 
prising degree  of  success  has  attended  the  effort  after  homogeneous 
texture  in  the  narrative  and  critical  essays  which  have  resulted;  a 
degree  of  success  which  I  call  surprising,  not  because  I  think  it  very 
nearly  complete,  but  because  I  am  astonished  that,  in  the  circum- 
stances, it  should  have  been  success  at  all  and  not  utter  failure. 


THE  VARIETY  AND   UNITY  OF  HISTORY  13 

It  is  far  from  being  utter  failure;  and  yet  how  far  it  is  also  from 
being  satisfactory  success!  Allow  me  to  take,  as  an  example  of  the 
way  in  which  these  works  are  constructed,  my  own  experience  in 
writing  a  chapter  for  the  volume  of  the  Cambridge  Modern  History 
which  is  devoted  to  the  United  States.  In  doing  so  I  am  far  from 
meaning  even  to  imply  any  criticism  upon  the  editors  of  that  admir- 
able series,  to  whom  we  are  all  so  much  indebted.  I  do  not  see  how, 
without  incredible  labor,  they  could  have  managed  the  delicate 
and  difficult  business  intrusted  to  them  in  any  other  way;  and  I  am 
adducing  my  experience  in  their  service  only  for  the  sake  of  illus- 
trating what  must,  no  doubt,  inevitably  be  the  limitations  and  draw- 
backs of  work  in  this  peculiar  kind.  I  can  think  of  no  other  way  so 
definite  of  assessing  the  quality  and  serviceability  of  this  sort  of  syn- 
thesis. I  was  asked  by  Lord  Acton  to  write  for  his  volume  on  the 
United  States  the  chapter  which  treats  of  the  very  painful  and 
important  decade  1850—1860,  and  I  undertook  the  commission  with 
a  good  deal  of  willingness.  There  are  several  things  concerning  that 
critical  period  which  I  like  to  have  an  opportunity  to  say.  But  I  had 
hardly  embarked  upon  the  interesting  enterprise,  which  I  was  bidden 
compass  within  thirty  of  the  ample  pages  of  the  Cambridge  royal 
octavos,  before  I  was  beset  by  embarrassments  with  regard  to  the 
manner  and  scope  of  treatment.  The  years  1850-1860  do  not,  of 
course,  either  in  our  own  history  or  in  any  other,  constitute  a  decade 
severed  from  its  fellows.  The  rootages  of  all  the  critical  matters 
which  then  began  to  bear  their  bitter  fruitage  are  many  and  complex 
and  run  far,  very  far,  back  into  soil  which  I  knew  very  well  other 
writers  were  farming.  I  did  not  know  what  they  would  say  or  leave 
unsaid,  explain  or  leave  doubtful.  I  could  take  nothing  for  granted; 
for  every  man's  point  of  view  needs  its  special  elucidation,  and  he  can 
depend  upon  no  other  man  to  light  his  path  for  him.  I  therefore 
wrote  a  narrative  essay,  in  my  best  philosophical  vein,  on  the  events 
of  the  decade  assigned  me,  in  which  I  gave  myself  a  very  free  hand 
and  took  care  to  allow  my  eye  a  wide  and  sweeping  view  upon  every 
side.  I  spoke  of  any  matter  I  pleased,  harked  back  to  any  transaction 
that  concerned  me,  recking  nothing  of  how  long  before  the  limiting 
date  1850  it  might  have  occurred,  and  so  flung  myself  very  freely,  — 
should  I  say  very  insolently?  —  through  many  a  reach  of  country 
that  clearly  and  of  my  own  certain  knowledge  belonged  to  others, 
by  recorded  Cambridge  title.  How  was  I  to  avoid  it?  My  co-laborers 
were  not  at  my  elbow  in  my  study.  Some  of  them  were  on  the  other 
side  of  the  sea.  The  editors  themselves  could  not  tell  me  what  these 
gentlemen  were  to  say,  for  they  did  not  know.  The  other  essays 
intended  for  the  volume  were  on  the  stocks  being  put  together,  as 
mine  was. 

I  must  conjecture  that  the  other  writers  for  that  volume  fared  as 


14  HISTORICAL  SCIENCE 

I  did,  and  took  the  law  into  their  own  hands  as  I  did;  and  their  expe- 
rience and  mine  is  the  moral  of  my  criticism.  No  sort  of  cunning 
joinery  could  fit  their  several  pieces  of  workmanship  together  into 
a  single  and  consistent  whole.  No  amount  of  uniform  type  and  sound 
binding  can  metamorphose  a  series  of  individual  essays  into  a  book. 
I  may  be  allowed  to  express  my  surprise,  in  passing,  that  some  indi- 
vidual historians  should  have  tried  to  compound  and  edit  themselves 
in  the  same  way,  by  binding  together  essays  which  were  conceived 
and  executed  as  separate  wholes.  The  late  Mr.  Edward  Eggleston 
furnished  us  with  a  distinguished  example  of  this  in  his  Beginners 
of  a  Nation,  whose  chapters  are  topical  and  run  back  and  forth 
through  time  and  circumstance  without  integration  or  organic  relation 
to  one  another,  treating  again  and  again  of  the  same  things  turned 
about  to  be  looked  at  from  a  different  angle.  And  if  a  man  of  capital 
gifts  cannot  fuse  his  own  essays,  or  even  beat  and  compress  them  into 
solid  and  coherent  amalgam,  how  shall  editors  be  blamed  who  find 
the  essays  of  a  score  of  minds  equally  intractable?  No  doubt  the 
Cambridge  volumes  are  meant  for  scholars  more  than  for  untrained 
readers,  though  Mr.  Traill's,  I  believe,  are  not;  but  even  the  docile 
scholar,  accustomed  of  necessity  to  contrast  and  variety  in  what  he 
pores  upon  and  by  habit  very  patient  in  reconciling  inconsistencies, 
plodding  through  repetitions,  noting  variations  and  personal  whim- 
sies, must  often  wonder  why  he  should  thus  digest  pieces  of  other 
men's  minds  and  eat  a  mixture  of  secondary  authorities.  The  fact  is, 
that  this  is  not  synthesis,  but  mere  juxtaposition.  It  is  not  even 
a  compounding  of  views  and  narratives.  It  is  compilation.  There  is 
no  whole  cloth,  no  close  texture,  anywhere  in  it.  The  collected  pieces 
overlap  and  are  sometimes  not  even  stitched  together.  Events  — 
even  events  of  critical  consequence  —  are  sometimes  incontinently 
overlooked,  dropped  utterly  from  the  narrative,  because  no  one  of 
the  writers  felt  any  particular  responsibility  for  them,  and  one  and 
another  took  it  for  granted  that  some  one  else  had  treated  of  them, 
finding  their  inclusion  germane  and  convenient. 

But  if  we  reject  this  sort  of  cooperation  as  unsatisfactory,  what 
are  we  to  do?  Obviously  some  sort  of  cooperation  is  necessary  in  this 
various  and  almost  boundless  domain  of  ours;  and  if  not  the  sort 
Mr.  Traill  and  Lord  Acton  planned,  what  sort  ia  possible?  The  ques- 
tion is  radical.  It  involves  a  great  deal  more  than  the  mere  deter- 
mination of  a  method.  It  involves  nothing  less  than  an  examination 
of  the  essential  character  and  object  of  history,  —  I  mean  of  that 
part  of  man's  book  of  words  which  is  written  as  a  deliberate  record 
of  his  social  experience.  What  are  our  ideals?  What,  in  the  last 
analysis,  do  we  conceive  our  task  to  be?  Are  we  mere  keepers  and 
transcribers  of  records,  or  do  we  write  our  own  thoughts  and  judg- 
ments into  our  narratives  and  interpret  what  we  record?   The  ques- 


THE  VARIETY  AND  UNITY  OF  HISTORY  15 

tion  may  be  simply  enough  asked,  but  it  cannot  be  simply  answered. 
The  matter  requires  elaboration. 

Let  us  ask  ourselves,  by  way  of  preliminary  test,  what  we  should 
be  disposed  to  require  of  the  ideal  historian,  what  qualities,  what 
powers,  what  aptitudes,  what  purposes?  Put  the  query  in  another 
form,  more  concrete,  more  convenient  to  handle:  how  would  you 
critically  distinguish  Mommsen's  History  from  a  doctor's  thesis?  By 
its  scope,  of  course;  but  its  scope  would  be  ridiculous  if  it  were  not 
for  its  insight,  its  power  to  reconceive  forgotten  states  of  society,  to 
put  antique  conceptions  into  life  and  motion  again,  build  scattered 
hints  into  systems,  and  see  a  long  national  history  singly  and  as 
a  whole.  Its  masterly  qualities  it  gets  from  the  perceiving  eye,  the 
conceiving  mind  of  its  great  author,  his  divination  rather  than  his 
learning.  The  narrative  impresses  you  as  if  written  by  one  who  has 
seen  records  no  other  man  ever  deciphered.  I  do  not  think  Mommsen 
an  ideal  historian.  His  habit  as  a  lawyer  was  too  strong  upon  him : 
he  wrote  history  too  much  as  if  it  were  an  argument.  His  curiosity 
as  an  antiquarian  was  too  keen:  things  very  ancient  and  obscure 
were  more  interesting  to  him  than  the  more  commonplace  things, 
which  nevertheless  constitute  the  bulk  of  the  human  story.  But  his 
genius  for  interpretation  was  his  patent  of  nobility  in  the  peerage  of 
historians;  he  would  not  be  great  without  it;  and  without  it  would 
not  illustrate  my  present  thesis. 

That  thesis  is,  that,  in  whatever  form,  upon  whatever  scale  you 
take  it,  the  writing  of  history  as  distinguished  from  the  clerical  keep- 
ing of  records  is  a  process  of  interpretation.  No  historical  writer, 
how  small  soever  his  plot  of  time  and  circumstance,  ever  records 
all  the  facts  that  fall  under  his  eye.  He  picks  and  chooses  for  his 
narrative,  determines  which  he  will  dwell  upon  as  significant,  which 
put  by  as  of  no  consequence.  And  that  is  a  process  of  judgment,  an 
estimation  of  values,  an  interpretation  of  the  matter  he  handles. 
The  smaller  the  plot  of  time  he  writes  of,  the  more  secluded  from  the 
general  view  the  matters  he  deals  with,  the  more  liable  is  he  to  error 
in  his  interpretation;  for  this  little  part  of  the  human  story  is  but 
a  part;  its  significance  lies  in  its  relation  to  the  whole.  It  requires 
nicer  skill,  longer  training,  better  art  and  craft  to  fit  it  to  its  little 
place  than  would  be  required  to  adjust  more  bulky  matters,  matters 
more  obviously  involved  in  the  general  structure,  to  their  right 
position  and  connections.  The  man  with  only  common  skill  and  eye- 
sight is  safer  at  the  larger,  cruder  sort  of  work.  Among  little  facts 
it  requires  an  exceeding  nice  judgment  to  pick  the  greater  and  the 
less,  prefer  the  significant  and  throw  away  only  the  negligible.  The 
specialist  must  needs  be  overseen  and  corrected  with  much  more 
vigilance  and  misgiving  than  the  national  historian  or  the  historian 
of  epochs. 


16  HISTORICAL  SCIENCE 

Here,  then,  is  the  fundamental  weakness  of  the  cooperative  his- 
tories of  which  I  have  spoken  by  example.  They  have  no  wholeness, 
singleness,  or  integrity  of  conception.  If  the  several  authors  who 
wrote  their  sections  or  chapters  had  written  their  several  parts  only 
for  the  eye  of  one  man  chosen  guide  and  chief  among  them,  and  he, 
pondering  them  all,  making  his  own  verifications,  and  drawing  from 
them  not  only  but  also  from  many  another  source  and  chiefly  from 
his  own  lifelong  studies,  had  constructed  the  whole,  the  narrative 
had  been  everywhere  richer,  more  complete,  more  vital,  a  living 
whole.  But  such  a  scheme  as  that  is  beyond  human  nature,  in  its 
present  jealous  constitution,  to  execute,  and  is  a  mere  pleasing  fancy, 
—  if  any  one  be  pleased  with  it.  Such  things  are  sometimes  done  in 
university  seminars,  where  masters  have  been  known  to  use,  at  their 
manifest  peril,  the  work  of  their  pupils  in  making  up  their  published 
writings;  but  they  ought  not  to  have  been  done  there,  and  they  are 
not  likely  to  be  done  anywhere  else.  At  least  this  may  be  said,  that, 
if  master  workmen  were  thus  to  use  and  interpret  other  men's  mate- 
rials, one  great  and  indispensable  gain  would  be  made:  history 
would  be  coherently  conceived  and  consistently  explained.  The 
reader  would  not  himself  have  to  compound  and  reconcile  the  diverg- 
ent views  of  his  authors. 

I  daresay  it  seems  a  very  radical  judgment  to  say  that  synthesis 
in  our  studies  must  come  by  means  of  literary  art  and  the  conceiving 
imagination ;  but  I  do  not  see  how  otherwise  it  is  to  come.  By  liter- 
ary art,  because  interpretation  cannot  come  by  crude  terms  and 
unstudied  phrases  in  writing  any  more  than  pictorial  interpretation 
can  come  by  a  crude,  unpracticed,  ignorant  use  of  the  brush  in  paint- 
ing. By  the  conceiving  imagination,  because  the  historian  is  not  a 
clerk  but  a  seer:  he  must  see  the  thing  first  before  he  can  judge  of  it. 
Not  the  inventing  imagination,  but  the  conceiving  imagination,  — 
not  all  historians  have  been  careful  to  draw  the  distinction  in  their 
practice.  It  is  imagination  that  is  needed,  is  it  not,  to  conceive  past 
generations  of  men  truly  in  their  habit  and  manner  as  they  lived? 
If  not,  it  is  some  power  of  the  same  kind  which  you  prefer  to  call  by 
another  name :  the  name  is  not  what  we  shall  stop  to  discuss.  I  will 
use  the  word  under  correction.  Nothing  but  imagination  can  put  the 
mind  back  into  past  experiences  not  its  own,  or  make  it  the  con- 
temporary of  institutions  long  since  passed  away  or  modified  beyond 
recognition.  And  yet  the  historian  must  be  in  thought  and  com- 
prehension the  contemporary  of  the  men  and  afifairs  he  writes  of. 
He  must  also,  it  is  true,  be  something  more:  if  he  would  have  the 
full  power  to  interpret,  he  must  have  the  offing  that  will  give  him 
perspective,  the  knowledge  of  subsequent  events  which  wiU  furnish 
him  with  multiplied  standards  of  judgment:  he  should  write  among 
records  amphfied,  verified,  complete,  withdrawn  from  the  mist  of 


THE  VARIETY  AND   UNITY  OF  HISTORY        17 

contemporary  opinion.  But  he  will  be  but  a  poor  interpreter  if  he 
have  alien  sympathies,  the  temperament  of  one  age  when  writing  of 
another,  it  may  be  contrasted  with  his  own  in  every  point  of  prefer- 
ence and  belief.  He  needs  something  more  than  sympathy,  for 
sympathy  may  be  condescending,  pitying,  contemptuous.  Few  things 
are  more  benighting  than  the  condescension  of  one  age  for  another, 
and  the  historian  who  shares  this  blinding  sentiment  is  of  course 
unfitted  for  his  office,  which  is  not  that  of  censor  but  that  of  inter- 
preter. Sympathy  there  must  be,  and  very  catholic  sympathy,  but 
it  must  be  the  sympathy  of  the  man  who  stands  in  the  midst  and  sees, 
like  one  within,  not  like  one  without,  Uke  a  native,  not  like  an  alien. 
He  must  not  sit  like  a  judge  exercising  exterritorial  jurisdiction. 

It  is  through  the  imagination  that  this  delicate  adjustment  of 
view  is  effected,  —  a  power  not  of  the  understanding  nor  yet  a  mere 
faculty  of  sympathetic  appreciation,  or  even  compounded  of  the 
two,  but  mixed  of  these  with  a  magical  gift  of  insight  added,  which 
makes  it  a  thing  mere  study,  mere  open-mindedness,  mere  coolness 
and  candor  of  judgment  cannot  attain.  Its  work  cannot  be  done  by 
editorship  or  even  by  the  fusing  of  the  products  of  different  minds 
under  the  heat  of  a  single  genius;  its  insight  is  without  rule,  and  is 
exercised  in  singleness  and  independence.  It  is  in  its  nature  a  thing 
individual  and  incommunicable. 

Since  literary  art  and  this  distinctive,  inborn  genius  of  interpreta- 
tion are  needed  for  the  elucidation  of  the  human  story  and  must  be 
married  to  real  scholarship  if  they  are  to  be  exercised  with  truth  and 
precision,  the  work  of  making  successful  synthesis  of  the  several 
parts  of  our  labors  for  each  epoch  and  nation  must  be  the  achieve- 
ment of  individual  minds,  and  it  might  seem  that  we  must  await  the 
slow  maturing  of  gifts  Shakespearean  to  accomplish  it.  But,  happily, 
the  case  is  not  so  desperate.  The  genius  required  for  this  task  has 
nothing  of  the  universal  scope,  variety,  or  intensity  of  the  Shake- 
spearean mind  about  it.  It  is  of  a  much  more  humble  sort  and  is, 
we  have  reason  to  believe,  conferred  upon  men  of  every  generation. 
There  would  be  good  cause  to  despair  of  the  advance  of  historical 
knowledge  if  it  were  not  bestowed  with  some  liberality.  It  is  needed 
for  the  best  sort  of  analysis  and  specialization  of  study  as  well  as  for 
successful  synthesis,  for  the  particular  as  well  as  for  the  general  task. 
Moreover,  a  certain  very  large  amount  of  cooperation  is  not  only 
possible  but  quite  feasible.  It  depends,  after  all,  on  the  specialists 
whether  there  shall  be  successful  synthesis  or  not.  If  they  wish  it, 
if  it  be  their  ideal,  if  they  construct  their  parts  with  regard  to  the 
whole  and  for  the  sake  of  the  whole,  synthesis  will  follow  naturally 
and  with  an  easy  approach  to  perfection;  but  if  the  specialists  are 
hostile,  if  their  enthusiasm  is  not  that  of  those  who  have  a  large  aim 
and  view,  if  they  continue  to  insist  on  detail  for  detail's  sake  and 


18  HISTORICAL  SCIENCE 

suspect  all  generalization  of  falseness,  if  they  cannot  be  weaned 
from  the  provincial  spirit  of  petty  farmers,  the  outlook  is  bad  enough, 
synthesis  is  indefinitely  postponed.  Synthesis  is  not  possible  without 
specialization.  The  special  student  must  always  garner,  sift,  verify. 
Minute  circumstance  must  be  examined  along  with  great  circum- 
stance, all  the  background  as  well  as  the  foreground  of  the  picture 
studied,  every  part  of  human  endeavor  held  separately  under 
scrutiny  until  its  individual  qualities  and  particular  relations  with 
the  rest  of  the  human  story  stand  clearly  revealed;  and  this  is,  of 
necessity,  the  work  of  hundreds  of  minds,  not  of  one  mind.  There  is 
labor  enough  and  honor  enough  to  go  around,  and  the  specialist 
who  puts  first-rate  gifts  into  his  task,  though  he  be  less  read,  will  not 
in  the  long  estimate  of  literature  earn  less  distinction  than  the  general 
historian.  It  is  a  question  of  the  division  and  cooperation  of  labor: 
but' it  is  more;  it  is  also  a  question  of  the  spirit  in  which  the  labor  is 
done,  the  public  spirit  that  animates  it,  the  general  aim  and  con- 
ception that  underlies  and  inspires  it. 

As  a  university  teacher  I  cannot  help  thinking  that  the  govern- 
ment of  the  matter  is  largely  in  the  hands  of  the  professors  of  history 
in  our  schools  of  higher  training.  The  modern  crop  of  specialists  is 
theirs :  they  can  plant  and  reap  after  a  different  kind  if  they  choose. 
I  am  convinced  that  the  errors  and  narrownesses  of  specialization  are 
chiefly  due  to  vicious  methods  and  mistaken  objects  in  the  training 
of  advanced  students  of  history  in  the  universities.  In  the  first  place, 
if  I  may  speak  from  the  experience  of  our  American  universities, 
students  are  put  to  tasks  of  special  investigation  before  they  are 
sufficiently  grounded  in  general  history  and  in  the  larger  aspects  of 
the  history  of  the  age  or  nation  of  which  they  are  set  to  elaborate  a 
part.  They  discover  too  many  things  that  are  already  known  and  too 
many  things  which  are  not  true,  —  at  any  rate,  in  the  crude  and  dis- 
torted shape  in  which  they  advance  them.  Other  universities  may 
be  happier  than  ours  in  their  material,  in  the  previous  training  of  the 
men  of  whom  they  try  to  make  investigators;  but  even  when  the 
earlier  instruction  of  their  pupils  has  been  more  nearly  adequate  and 
better  suited  to  what  is  to  follow,  the  training  they  add  is  not,  I  take 
the  liberty  of  saying,  that  which  is  likely  to  produce  history,  but  only 
that  which  is  likely  to  produce  doctors'  theses.  The  students  in 
their  seminars  are  encouraged,  if  they  are  not  taught,  to  prefer  the 
part  to  the  whole,  the  detail  to  the  spirit,  like  chemists  who  should 
prefer  the  individual  reactions  of  their  experiments  to  the  laws 
which  they  illustrate. 

I  should  think  the  mischievous  mistake  easy  enough  of  correction. 
It  is  quite  possible  to  habituate  students  to  a  point  of  view,  and  to 
do  so  is  often,  I  daresay,  the  best  part  of  their  preparation.  When 
they  come  to  the  advanced  stage  of  their  training,  at  which  they  are 


THE  VARIETY  AND   UNITY  OF  HISTORY        19 

to  be  set  to  learn  methods  of  investigation,  they  should  not  be  set 
first  of  all  to  the  discovery  or  elaboration  of  facts,  to  the  filling  in  of 
the  hiatuses  easily  and  everywhere  to  be  discerned,  by  their  precept- 
ors at  any  rate,  in  the  previous  study  of  detail.  They  should,  rather, 
be  set  to  learn  a  very  different  process,  the  process  of  synthesis:  to 
establish  the  relations  of  circumstances  already  known  to  the  general 
history  of  the  day  in  which  they  occurred.  These  circumstances 
should  not  all  be  political  or  economic  or  legal;  they  should  as  often 
concern  religion,  literature,  art,  or  the  development  of  language,  so 
that  the  student  should  at  once  become  accustomed  to  view  the  life 
of  men  in  society  as  a  whole.  Heaven  knows  there  is  enough  original 
work  waiting  to  be  done  in  this  kind  to  keep  many  generations  of 
youngsters  profitably  employed.  Look  where  you  will  in  the  field  of 
modern  monographs,  and  it  is  easy  to  find  unassociated  facts  piled 
high  as  the  roofs  of  libraries.  There  is  not  a  little  fame  as  well  as  much 
deep  instruction  to  be  got  out  of  classifying  them  and  bringing  them 
into  their  vital  relations  with  the  life  of  which  they  form  a  part.  It 
were  mere  humanity  to  relieve  them  of  their  loneliness.  After  they 
had  been  schooled  in  this  work,  which,  believe  me,  some  one  must  do, 
and  that  right  promptly,  our  advanced  students  of  history  and  of 
historical  method  would  be  ready  to  go  on,  if  it  were  only  after 
graduation,  after  the  fateful  doctor's  degree,  to  the  further  task  of 
making  new  collections  of  fact,  which  they  would  then  instinctively 
view  in  their  connection  with  the  known  circumstances  of  the  age  in 
which  they  happened.  Thus,  perhaps  thus  only,  will  the  spirit  and 
the  practice  of  synthesis  be  bred. 

If  this  change  should  be  successfully  brought  about,  there  would 
no  longer  be  any  painful  question  of  hierarchy  among  historians: 
the  specialist  would  have  the  same  spirit  as  the  national  historian, 
would  use  the  same  power,  display  the  same  art,  and  pass  from  the 
ranks  of  artisans  to  the  ranks  of  artists,  making  cameos  as  much  to 
be  prized  as  great  canvases  or  heroic  statues.  Until  this  happens 
history  will  cease  to  be  a  part  of  literature,  and  that  is  but  another 
way  of  saying  that  it  will  lose  its  influence  in  the  world,  its  mono- 
graphs prove  about  as  vital  as  the  specimens  in  a  museum.  It  is  not 
only  the  delightful  prerogative  of  our  studies  to  view  man  as  a  whole, 
as  a  living,  breathing  spirit,  it  is  also  their  certain  fate  that  if  they  do 
not  view  him  so,  no  living,  breathing  spirit  will  heed  them.  We  have 
used  the  wrong  words  in  speaking  of  our  art  and  craft.  History  must 
be  revealed,  not  recorded,  conceived  before  it  is  written,  and  we 
must  all  in  our  several  degrees  be  seers,  not  clerks.  It  is  a  high  calling 
and  should  not  be  behttled.  Statesmen  are  guided  and  formed  by 
what  we  write,  patriots  stimulated,  tyrants  checked.  Reform  and 
progress,  charity  and  freedom  of  belief,  the  dreams  of  artists  and  the 
fancies  of  poets,  have  at  once  their  record  and  their  source  with  us. 


20  HISTORICAL  SCIENCE 

We  must  not  suffer  ourselves  to  fall  dull  and  pedantic,  must  not  lose 
our  visions  or  cease  to  speak  the  large  words  of  inspiration  and  guid- 
ance. It  were  a  shame  upon  us  to  drop  from  the  ranks  of  those  who 
walk  at  the  van  and  sink  into  the  ranks  of  those  who  only  follow 
after,  to  pick  up  the  scattered  traces  of  the  marching  host  as  things 
merely  to  pore  upon  and  keep.  We  cannot  do  this.  We  will  return 
to  our  traditions  and  compel  our  fellow  historians  of  literature  to 
write  of  us  as  of  those  who  were  masters  of  a  great  art. 


DEPARTMENT  III 
POLITICAL   AND  ECONOMIC   HISTORY 


POLITICAL  AND  ECONOMIC  HISTORY 

{Hall  4,  September  20,  11.15  a.  m.) 


THE  SCIENCE  OF   HISTORY  IN  THE  NINETEENTH 

CENTURY 

BY   WILLIAM   MILLIGAN   SLOANE 

[William  Milligan  Sloane,  Seth  Low  Professor  of  History,  Coliimbia  University, 
since.  1896.  b.  November  12,  1850,  Richmond,  Ohio.  A.B.  Columbia,  1868; 
Ph.D.  Leipsic,  1876;  L.H.D.  Columbia,  1885;  LL.D.  Rutgers,  1900;  Princeton, 
1903.  Post-graduate,  University  of  Beriin,  1872-75;  University  of  Leipsic, 
1875-76.  Classical  Master  Newell  Institute,  1868-72.  Professor  of  Latin, 
Princeton,  1877-82;  History,  1882-96.  Member  Academy  of  Political  Science, 
American  Historical  Association,  National  Institute  of  Arts  and  Letters. 
Author  of  The  French  War  and  the  Revolution;  Napoleon  Bonaparte;  The 
French  Revolution  and  Religious  Reform;  and  editor  of  The  American  Histor- 
ical Review.] 

The  scientific  study  of  history  seeks  to  find  in  the  past  the  means 
of  determining  both  the  evolution  occurring  under  our  eyes  and  the 
probabilities  of  the  future.  No  preconception  may  distort  the  facts; 
but,  the  facts  once  determined,  they  may  not  be  considered  except 
in  the  light  of  reason.  This  by  the  rhetorical  figure  of  "  anticipation  " 
we  call,  the  Science  of  History.  There  is  no  claim  that  as  yet  this  is 
other  than  an  empirical  science:  we  hope  that  one  day  it  may  become 
fairly  complete;  exact,  within  certain  limits.  Freeman,  Morley, 
Acton;  Comte,  Renan,  Taine;  Waitz,  Ranke,  Mommsen,  —  these  are 
some  of  the  men  who  during  the  century  just  past  have  labored  to 
make  history  scientific.  One  and  all  they  ridiculed  the  wild  exaggera- 
tion of  mere  reason  as  the  final  arbiter,  apart  from  the  affections, 
the  imagination,  and  the  moral  sense;  one  and  all  they  distrusted 
the  "vague  and  sterile  philanthropy,"  which  is  so  often  a  plague  to 
normal  social  conditions.  Freethinkers  as  were  most  of  them,  yet, 
liberal  and  orthodox  alike,  they  believed  in  the  merits  and  benefac- 
tions of  the  Christian  Church  as  a  vital  factor  in  their  science.  In  their 
catholic  spirit  they  were  truly  scientific. 

It  is  assumed  that  the  scientific  study  of  history  has  entirely  dis- 
placed history  as  literature;  or  literary  history,  as  many  style  it. 
There  have,  indeed,  been  many  men  of  light  and  learning,  whose  style 
and  trained  imagination  have  transmuted  history  into  literature: 
there  have  been  others  who  sought,  even  in  the  study  of  texts  and  in 
the  interpretations  of  philology,  to  secure  the  material  of  novels,  tales, 
or  poetry,  to  find  examples  for  the  inspiration  and  consolation  of 


24  POLITICAL  AND  ECONOMIC  HISTORY 

contemporary  life.  For  such  works  the  public  has  a  passion,  and  no 
wonder;  with  the  delight  of  literature  we  seem  to  combine  learning 
and  education.  We  savor  and  love  the  mixture  of  fact,  philosophy, 
and  poetry;  the  invention,  the  charm,  the  power.  Yet  this  is  not 
and  never  was  history;  something  perhaps  higher,  but  not  history. 
There  may  even  be  literary  science;  but  for  all  that  science  is  not 
literature  nor  literature  science.  These  twain  cannot  be  made  one 
flesh.   Each  may  modify  the  other,  but  there  is  no  transmutation. 

For  the  scientific  study  of  history  we  must  have  minds  subtle, 
conscientious,  and  accurate  —  minds  with  a  power  and  aptitude  for 
minutiae,  with  a  patience  and  endurance  which  know  no  bounds, 
honest  minds  incapable  of  even  self-deception,  and  in  particular 
with  the  linguistic  gift  that  makes  no  language  impossible  of  acquisi- 
tion or  foreign  to  the  learner's  aptitudes.  Only  for  the  mind  thus 
equipped  can  history  and  philology  be  scientific.  The  generations  of 
men  endowed  with  the  imaginative  faculty  have  seen  and  will  ever 
see,  in  the  labors  of  such  minds,  the  most  splendid  form  of  applied 
art,  the  highest  known  form  of  prose  literature  possibly,  but  cer- 
tainly the  nearest  approach  to  scientific  history  that  can  be  made. 

In  ours  as  in  other  disciplines  there  is  trouble;  and  the  trouble, 
as  elsewhere,  arises  among  the  men  who  are  destitute,  or  nearly  so,  of 
the  imaginative  power  which  is  so  well  designated  as  the  scientific 
imagination.  Honest  men  of  this  sort,  proud  of  their  devotion  and 
accuracy,  become  pedantic,  claim  infallibility,  and  despise  all  others: 
in  the  presence  of  the  most  august  of  all  terrestrial  things,  —  the 
origins,  rise,  and  evolution  of  a  state,  the  supreme  social  unit,  —  the 
mere  investigator  secures  no  large  view  but  becomes  a  stern,  con- 
temptuous materialist.  Only  worse  than  these  are  the  ignorant  and 
impatient,  who  disdain  the  accuracy  of  truth,  and  are  indifferent  to 
the  orderly  arrangement  of  facts:  the  chain  of  causation  in  human 
affairs  they  can  neither  understand  nor  appreciate,  being  dazzled  by 
speculation,  imagery,  and  rhetoric.  Shallow  and  inaccurate,  they 
prate  about  history  as  literature,  and  deny  the  possibility  of  a  science 
of  history. 

In  the  closing  years  of  the  nineteenth  century  there  was  much 
strife  about  the  question  as  to  whether  or  not  there  could  be  science 
in  history.  The  question  now  is :  How  much  science  and  of  what  kind 
is  there  in  history?  As  some  help  toward  a  reply,  we  are  forced  to  an 
historical  retrospect  of  the  efforts  to  secure  and  apply  a  method. 

The  eighteenth  century  is  by  many  regarded  as  the  period  when 
history  was  bom  anew  into  the  realm  of  science.  The  reason  given  is 
that  it  coincided  with  the  final  overthrow  of  ecclesiasticism,  and  the 
chief  names  adduced  in  proof  are  these  of  Vico  (1668-1744),  Gibbon 
(1737-94),  Voltaire  (1694-1778),  and  Burke  (1729-97).  It  was  felt 
that  humanity  was,  if  not  its  own  first  cause,  at  least  its  own  demi- 


HISTORY  IN   THE   NINETEENTH  CENTURY         25 

urge,  and  men  were  determined  to  discover,  if  possible,  what  were 
the  processes  by  which  mankind  had  formed  itself  and  made  its  home. 
Without  a  doubt  there  was  for  this  reason  a  passionate  study  of 
nature,  and  it  may  have  been  a  necessary  complement  that  both  the 
statics  and  dynamics  of  social  phenomena  were  examined  with  a  new 
purpose  and  from  a  new  angle.  But  in  spite  of  all  efforts  to  establish 
this  contention  and  to  trace  an  historical  continuity  in  the  science  of 
"histories"  from  then  until  now,  there  lie  athwart  the  argument 
difficulties  so  portentous  and  so  serious  as  almost  if  not  entirely  to 
vitiate  its  conclusions. 

It  is  true  that  Vico  was  the  first  to  ask  why,  if  there  be  a  science 
of  nature,  we  have  no  science  of  history?  It  is  consequently  true  that 
he  was  the  first  historical  evolutionist.  To  him  the  story  of  a  nation 
was  the  record  of  an  ever  completer  realization  in  fact  of  certain 
remnants  of  a  pre-natal  revelation,  of  the  primitive  concrete  notions 
of  justice,  goodness,  beauty,  and  truth:  the  development,  as  he 
phrased  it,  of  this  poetic  wisdom  into  the  occult  wisdom  of  law  and 
government,  into  the  realization  of  abstract  and  impersonal  justice, 
was  for  him  the  subject-matter  of  history.  This  was  a  sublime  idea, 
pregnant  with  great  possibilities.  But  its  author  could  not  see  the 
conclusions.  Conceiving  of  three  stages  —  divine,  heroic,  and 
human  —  he  announced  three  corresponding  civilizations,  ending  in 
an  unstable  democracy,  whence  society  abandoned  to  license  always 
relapses  into  barbarism,  only  to  emerge  once  more  by  a  law  of  cycles 
into  a  renewal  of  the  process.  This,  of  course,  is  a  flat  denial  of  pro- 
gress. Moreover  Vico  never  had  a  glimpse,  much  less  a  vision,  of 
scientific  order  in  history  beyond  the  record  of  a  single  folk,  and  never 
conceived  of  general  history  in  a  scientific  aspect.  For  these  reasons 
he  was  a  prophet  without  honor,  either  contemporaneous  or  post- 
humous, and  left  no  influence  behind  to  mould  either  his  own  or 
succeeding  ages. 

The  method  which  Voltaire  announced  was  alike  more  simple  and 
more  scientific.  It  was  based  on  the  theory  that  most  details  of  his- 
tory are  mere  baggage,  and  that  when  the  lumber  of  the  antiquary, 
as  Bolingbroke  called  it,  is  disengaged  from  capital  events,  you  may 
study  in  these  last  the  vital  human  power  and  its  workings.  Wars, 
diplomacy,  and  the  personal  minutiae  of  the  political  hierarchy,  he 
relegated  to  the  garret  of  the  chronicler  and  collector:  laws,  arts,  and 
manners,  he  conceived  to  be  the  essentials  of  history.  Equipped  with 
this  doctrine,  he  turned  to  account  such  portions  of  his  time  as  he 
could  spare  from  literature,  politics,  and  attacks  on  ecclesiasticism 
to  the  composition  of  philosophical  history.  By  the  sheer  force  of 
historic  doubt  he  destroyed  many  a  myth,  by  the  seductions  of  a 
graceful  style  and  the  stings  of  a  biting  sarcasm  he  relegated  the 
millinery  of  human  life  to  the  rummage  chambers  where  it  belongs, 


26  POLITICAL  AND   ECONOMIC  HISTORY 

and  finally  in  his  great  essay  on  manners  he  drew  the  plan  and 
established  the  proportions  for  a  concept  of  unity  in  history  which  in 
another  land  and  age  was  destined  to  revolutionize  the  pursuit. 

Either  he  never  knew  or  he  had  forgotten  a  vital  point.  Jejune 
and  embryonic  as  Aristotle's  Politics  appear  when  applied  to  our  pro- 
blems, his  experience  having  been  confined  to  the  petty  states  of 
Greece,  he  nevertheless  found  and  set  forth  the  vital  principle  of  soci- 
ety as  an  organism.  On  this  were  based  the  ancient  concepts  of 
economics.  The  embryo  of  modern  economics  was  begotten  by  Jean 
Bodin  (1580),  a  lawyer  of  the  sixteenth  century,  who  formulated  the 
ideas  of  progress,  law,  and  causation  in  history.  Had  he  combined 
with  his  own  thoughts  (Methodus  ad  facilem  Historiarum  Cognitionem) 
the  one  great  thought  of  Aristotle,  he  would  have  been  even  more 
famous  than  he  is,  he  would  have  been  the  father  of  scientific  history 
as  well  as  of  scientific  economics.  His  objective,  external  attitude 
toward  history  was  that  of  all  the  great,  down  to  the  nineteenth  cen- 
tury; it  was  the  basic  concept  and  starting-point  of  Bossuet,  of  Vico, 
of  Bodin,  and  even  of  Montesquieu.  It  was  likewise  the  radical  vice  of 
Voltaire,  as  in  a  still  higher  degree  it  was  that  of  Gibbon.  The  founda- 
tions of  the  social  union  may  not  be  studied  in  collections  of  historical, 
legal,  or  even  social  facts,  nor  in  brilliant  generalizations  therefrom, 
like  those  which  cause  the  pages  of  Montesquieu  to  flash  and  scintil- 
late. The  true  science  of  history  shows  us  not  merely  the  operations, 
what  has  been  called  the  "play  and  function"  of  the  social  organs, 
it  exhibits  under  the  scalpel  the  organs  themselves.  Negative  criti- 
cism has  its  rights,  no  doubt,  but  it  is  scanty  fare  for  the  hungry  soul, 
and  the  idea  of  constructive,  productive  criticism  was  far  better 
developed  in  Thucydides  than  in  Voltaire;  the  most  that  can  be 
said  of  the  latter  is  that  he  saw  in  a  glass  darkly  the  concept,  not  of 
the  unity  of  history,  but  of  European  history  as  a  totality. 

What  then  of  Gibbon;  has  he  too  been  weighed  in  the  balances  and 
found  wanting?  His  erudition  was  immense,  his  pen  facile  and  power- 
ful, his  grasp  gigantic  and  his  method  sound.  Let  us  apply  the  su- 
preme test.  Do  scholars  read  him?  or,  if  they  read  him,  is  it  for  any 
other  motive  than  a  learned  curiosity?  They  copiously  correct  and 
annotate  him,  and  freely  explore  the  mazes  of  his  thought:  they 
conspire  with  publishers  to  issue  new  editions  of  his  books,  and  the 
public  buys  edition  after  edition;  but  so  likewise  do  they  buy  edition 
after  edition  of  Rollin's  Universal  History!  The  sets  look  well  on  the 
shelves,  but  the  man  who  reads  either  is  hard  pressed  to  kill  time. 
There  is  more  light  thrown  on  the  Decline  and  Fall  by  the  short 
treatise  of  Fustel  than  by  all  the  ponderous  and  erudite  rhetoric  of 
Gibbon.  We  have  gleaned,  not  a  few,  but  many  facts,  which  Gibbon 
had  not,  even  though  the  truth  of  fact  is  on  all  his  pages;  his  method 
struggles  to  combine  the  ideas  of  evolution  and  of  organism,  but 


HISTORY  IN  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY         27 

his  logic  is  after  all  felt  to  be  futile  and  his  conclusions  antiquated. 
Like  the  other  historians  of  his  epoch,  though  the  movement  of  his 
style  is  like  that  of  the  Roman  triumph,  he  has  not  left  to  the  world 
a  "possession  forever."  Scholars  can  find  all  his  information  else- 
where, the  use  he  makes  of  it  they  neither  admire  nor  approve. 
Readers  of  discrimination  have  better  use  for  their  time  than  to  pe- 
ruse the  pages  of  an  unsympathetic  formalist,  the  eulogist  of  heathen 
effeminacy,  an  apologist  for  pagan  morality. 

In  truth,  the  eighteenth  century  is  very  remote  from  the  nine- 
teenth. The  same  facts  no  longer  wear  the  same  faces,  and  another 
method  has  gradually  supplanted  that  which,  though  respectable, 
was  nevertheless  outworn.  A  restless  evolution  renews  during  every 
few  generations  all  history  in  all  its  aspects,  and  never  halts  in  the 
process.  It  is  the  fiat  that  history  must  be  rewritten  as  knowledge 
grows,  as  epoch  succeeds  epoch.  This  is  because  readers  have  lived; 
have  lived  themselves  into  a  world  that  is  new  scientifically  and 
psychologically,  and  which  has  perspectives  of  which  the  past  knew 
nothing.  Viewed  from  the  heights  of  our  modern  achievements  in 
learning,  the  vaunted  historical  science  of  the  eighteenth  century, 
method  and  all,  seems  little  better  than  a  dangerous  pseudo-science 
like  phrenology  or  astrology. 

The  first  reaction  against  what  was  after  all  a  phantom,  stately 
though  it  were,  sprang  rather  from  feeling  than  from  knowledge; 
it  was  a  rebound  of  logic  and  not  of  reason.  This  premature  revolt 
is  probably  best  illustrated  in  the  case  of  Niebuhr.  Though  powerful, 
the  mind  of  the  great  Danish  diplomat  was  dry  and  disdainful: 
contemptuous  of  the  practical  and  judicial.  In  his  field  of  ancient 
history  he  substituted  for  painstaking  research  and  for  concrete 
reasoning  a  method  based  on  gratuitous  assumptions,  a  method 
which  destroyed  traditional  reality,  to  erect  in  its  place  a  baseless 
fabric  of  credulous  negations.  It  has  been  the  task  of  his  successors, 
beginning  with  Mommsen  and  ending  with  Taine's  fine  treatise  on 
Livy,  to  dissipate  his  airy  structure  of  so-called  analytic  criticism. 
Considerate  as  they  have  been,  they  have  left  upright  only  a  very  few 
of  his  original  contentions,  and  these  the  least  important,  wherewith 
to  uphold,  for  shame's  sake,  the  vanishing  renown  of  his  name.  •  The 
indications  of  archaeological  discovery  at  this  hour  all  point  to  the 
ultimate  annihilation  of  every  principle  and  position  which  he  enun- 
ciated. Could  his  shade  be  seen  strolling  to-day  across  the  exca- 
vated Roman  Forum,  and  its  crowding  reflections  be  recorded  for 
our  benefit,  the  muttered  syllables  of  its  vanitas  vanitatum  would 
instruct  our  generation  how  superior  is  even  the  older  notion  of 
history  as  a  compound  of  poetry  and  philosophy  to  the  substitute, 
which  merely  dissects  and  compares  abstractions,  which  begets 
negations  and  brings  forth  only  specious  presumptions. 


28  POLITICAL   AND   ECONOMIC  HISTORY 

It  will  appear,  I  think,  on  dispassionate  examination,  that  the 
beginning  of  fruitfully  scientific  study  in  history,  the  initiation  of 
the  modern  method,  is  to  be  found  in  Heeren.  Unlike  Niebuhr,  he 
builded  with  new  materials.  Beginning  as  a  philosopher,  he  applied 
in  ancient  history  the  Socratic  method,  and  discovered  that  the  states 
of  antiquity  could  be  understood  only  in  the  light  of  their  institutions 
and  their  politics.  Entering  on  a  profound  investigation  of  these,  he 
found  them  so  interlaced  with  their  foreign  relations  that  he  exam- 
ined under  compulsion  both  Greece  and  Rome  in  their  connection 
alike  with  Egypt  and  with  Carthage.  Even  with  the  imperfect  in- 
formation of  the  time,  he  brought  to  light  the  momentous  principle  of 
mutation  as  dependent  not  merely  on  outward  form  but  on  internal 
structure  (morphology).  His  is  the  vital  notion  of  comparing  con- 
temporary histories  in  short  periods,  as  opposed  to  the  elucidation  of 
single  ones  in  long  succeeding  cycles  of  time.  For  this  is  essential  to 
our  later  doctrine  of  the  unity  of  history,  without  which  no  true 
science  of  the  same,  however  rudimentary,  is  at  all  possible.  With 
a  consciousness  of  this  grand  truth  as  probably  applicable  to  every 
period  of  history,  he  essayed  it  in  the  following  epochs  and  evolved 
the  concept  which,  revolutionary  then,  is  now  the  corner-stone  of 
modern  history,  that  of  the  state-system  of  Europe,  the  basis  upon 
which  Macaulay  erected  the  great  reputation  which  he  deserves. 
It  may  be  asserted  of  Heeren  now,  as  was  hinted  by  a  French 
critic  in  his  lifetime,  that  he  avoided  every  pitfall  into  which 
cumbrous  thoroughness  throws  its  German  votaries,  and  escaped 
every  trap  which  over-confident  logic  sets  for  its  acrobatic  French 
disciples. 

The  fine  sense  of  limit  and  proportion  exhibited  by  Heeren  were  in 
glaring  contrast  to  the  shoreless  ocean  of  speculation  on  which  both 
Herder  and  Hegel  were  sailing  almost  simultaneously.  Alike  they 
taught  that  the  earthly  realization  of  reason  in  history  is  a  necessity, 
that  whether  by  men,  or  in  spite  of  man,  all  obstacles  are  leveled 
until  humanity,  freed  from  every  hindrance,  realizes  the  divine  ideal. 
Alike  therefore  they  landed  on  the  quicksands  of  what  may  be  to 
some  a  buoyant,  but  is  to  most  a  very  gloomy  fatalism,  as  the  only 
basis  for  progress,  being  alike  unmindful  of  Kant's  almost  self- 
evident  but  nevertheless  glorious  declaration  that  progress  is  a 
moral  product  purely.  From  the  position  of  these  transcendentalists 
the  thought  which  has  dominated  the  latter  years  of  the  nineteenth 
century,  that  of  the  pure  evolutionists,  does  not  essentially  budge  one 
jot:  both  are  fatalistic.  The  latter,  it  is  true,  have  a  concept  of  pro- 
gress antipodal  to  that  of  their  predecessors.  They  likewise  assume, 
somewhat  rashly  it  seems  in  the  present  state  of  physics,  that  the 
laws  of  science  are  fixed  and  immutable;  in  particular,  the  taproot 
of  the  system,  the  doctrine  of  the  conservation  of  energy,  seems  to 


HISTORY  IN  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY         29 

sit  uneasily  on  crumbling  and  refractory  shale  instead  of  burrowing 
ever  deeper  into  fertile  soil. 

It  is  in  the  application  of  this  very  doctrine  that  their  theory 
of  history  emerges.  To  them  it  appears  that  energy  being  constant 
and  indestructible  in  the  social  as  in  the  physical  order,  every  dyna- 
mic element  works  necessarily  to  associate  itself  with  others,  forming 
under  internal  influence,  by  integration  an  organism  ever  more  and 
more  complex.  Simultaneously  and  subsequently  goes  on  the  pro- 
cess of  disintegration,  each  element  disassociating  itself  from  others 
under  external  influence,  and  forming  again  with  other  and  like  busy 
elements  new  composites,  which  in  turn  inaugurate  the  next  stage 
of  evolution  and  devolution,  of  progress  and  decadence.  While  these 
philosophers  fail  to  find  the  secret  of  purpose  and  procedure,  yet  they 
never  entirely  abandoned  teleology,  and  some  at  least  have  lately 
returned  to  it  as  essential  to  their  thought,  for  advance  seems  to  them 
stronger  than  retreat,  constructive  stronger  than  destructive  force. 

The  history  of  philosophy  shows  that  every  cycle  of  thought  ends 
in  some  phase  of  materialism.  There  is  at  this  hour  such  a  school  of 
Augustuluses,  and  they  have  been  fairly  influential  in  high  places. 
They  have  unraveled  evolutionary  logic  into  what  is  an  absurdity 
and  are  loosing  the  slight  hold  they  have  had  for  a  time.  Theirs  is  not 
the  agnosticism  which  is  a  state  of  suspended  judgment,  but  the  firm 
conviction  of  the  obscurantist,  denying  the  right  of  generalization  as 
to  fact  or  principle,  scorning  the  notion  of  ethical  values  in  history. 
They  reunite  the  vicious  circle,  joining  hands  with  Froude  and  scoff- 
ing at  the  idea  of  science  in  history,  even  of  an  empirical  science. 
For  them  history  is  but  a  mosaic  of  details,  without  design  or  outline, 
like  some  cathedral  windows  in  England;  patched  and  assembled 
from  the  shreds  to  which  iconoclasts  reduced  the  glorious  and  glowing 
paintings  which,  by  color  and  orderly  arrangement,  once  conveyed 
noble  and  exalting  thought.  These  are  the  haughty  disciples  of  the 
monograph,  the  apostles  of  the  "unprinted,"  the  missionaries  of 
chaos.  In  the  wilderness  they  seek  to  create,  their  voice  is  heard  but 
not  heeded.  Generous  youth  has  a  fine  instinct  in  the  matter  of 
barren  nonsense.  There  is  science  in  the  sections  of  the  biologist  and 
in  the  preparation  of  them,  but  neither  the  one  nor  the  other  is  the 
science  of  biology.  We  are  grateful  to  these  painstaking  antiquarians 
for  their  materials,  but  we  cannot  accept  the  materials  in  place  of  the 
finished  edifice. 

Fortunately  there  has  been  a  saner  evolution  than  this.  On  Bacon's 
great  principle  have  stood  those  who  guide  and  advance  it;  the 
principle,  namely,  that  it  is  the  honor  and  the  glory  of  history  to 
trace  causes  and  their  combination  with  effects.  The  most  com- 
manding characters  of  history,  like  men  of  common  mould,  suffer 
the  compulsion  of  circumstances  which  they  cannot  control.  It  must 


30  POLITICAL  AND   ECONOMIC  HISTORY 

be  admitted  and  duly  emphasized  that  there  is  a  mystery,  a  nature 
of  things,  which  runs  with  and  athwart  human  purpose;  that  there 
is  a  cosmic  order,  pregnant  with  a  train  of  events  that  are  inevitable; 
there  are  relation,  proportions  and  links  in  affairs  and  in  men,  which 
are  predetermined.  This,  when  disengaged  from  the  documents,  is 
what  has  been  designated  the  weft  or  texture  of  history.  Thereon  is 
drawn  and  embroidered  by  man  the  enduring  picture  which  is  the 
historical  record.  This  is  the  view  of  history  which  lays  emphasis 
neither  on  collective  nor  on  individual  man,  but  on  the  personal  and 
race  conscience  alike  and  in  equal  proportion.  The  law  of  moral  pro- 
gress has  always  imposed  itself  on  societies,  and  always  will,  just  in 
proportion  as  individuals  will  that  it  shall,  and  labor  without  cease 
for  the  purpose. 

It  was  a  great  saying  which  Kant  uttered  when  he  said:  By  strug- 
gle and  effort  ought  all  human  faculties  to  perfect  themselves;  moral 
progress  is  antecedent  to  all  other  forms  and  the  source  of  them; 
besides,  the  conquests  of  each  generation  are  the  capital  of  the  next, 
so  tliat  the  sole  condition  of  human  perfectibility  is  the  establishment 
of  a  civil  society  founded  on  justice.  The  determination  to  realize 
existence  more  completely,  to  struggle  for  the  ideal,  to  aspire  higher 
—  the  larger  the  number  in  every  society  who  so  feel  it,  and  so 
behave,  the  more  completely  will  be  overcome  the  apparently  in- 
superable obstacles  to  advance,  the  bondage  of  the  past  over  the 
present,  the  restriction  of  each  people  by  its  contemporaries,  the 
powerful  solidarity  of  habit,  of  creed,  and  of  inertia  among  men. 

This  is  the  view  of  historical  science  which,  whether  right  or  wrong, 
was  characteristic  of  the  nineteenth  century  in  all  its  best  and  most 
fruitful  work:  the  recognition  of  the  evolutionary  movement,  the 
exhibition  of  the  uses  to  which  men  put  it;  the  display  of  its  organic 
integration,  the  proof  of  its  external  disintegration  by  moral  forces; 
the  sloughing  of  refuse,  the  renewal  of  vital  powers.  This  doctrine 
may  not  pretend  to  the  high  scientific  quality  of  some  others,  but 
somehow  it  satisfies  the  master  workmen  and  gratifies  the  aspira- 
tions, instincts,  and  convictions  of  readers  far  better  than  any  other. 
It  is  the  view  which  still  controls  the  spiritual  and  intellectual  activ- 
ities of  the  best  men  in  the  highest  civilizations.  Neglecting  the 
philosophical  "impasse"  of  liberty  and  necessity,  it  satisfies  the  re- 
quirements of  an  imperious  demand;  that  for  the  tangible  results  of 
human  experience. 

The  fruits  of  science  being  both  a  means  of  enjoyment  and  a  guide 
to  conduct,  our  attention  has  naturally  been  monopolized  by  the 
marvelous  achievements  of  physical  science.  This  is  incorrect  and 
unjust;  the  advance  and  the  results  of  the  humanistic  sciences  have 
been  equally  remarkable.  The  polymath  of  the  eighteenth  century, 
with  his  unorganized  masses  of  uncouth  learning,  would  to-day  be 


HISTORY  IN  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY         31 

a  deformed  monstrosity,  so  far  has  erudition  spread  its  field  and  so 
profound  are  the  investigations  of  scholars.  The  comparative  method, 
without  which  modern  science  of  any  sort  would  be  impossible,  is 
itself  an  invention  of  the  humanists.  And  I  have  heard  the  greatest 
devotees  of  pure  science  in  our  time  yearn  for  a  comparative  historian 
of  their  disciplines.  The  entire  success  of  scientific  history  is  due 
to  the  achievements  of  the  ancillary  sciences;  as  revolutionary  in 
method  and  results  as  either  physics,  chemistry,  or  biology.  In  par- 
ticular, history  is  the  hopeless  and  grateful  debtor  of  comparative 
sociology,  philology,  and  mythology,  of  comparative  religions,  folk- 
lore and  ethnology;  and  above  all  of  comparative  archaeology.  One 
winter  spent  on  the  Nile  examining  the  unbroken  and  unfalsified 
record  of  10,000  years  in  human  evolution  under  external  influences 
is  worth  to  the  student  all  the  metaphysics  of  history,  even  when 
indited  by  the  genius  of  a  Hegel. 

By  this  vast  erudition  the  work  of  the  historian  has  become  such 
that  a  division  of  labor  is  essential.  There  must  be  specialists  in 
each  and  all  of  these  ancillary  sciences,  and  the  historian  must  use 
their  results  as  his  matter.  It  has  become  the  categorical  imperative 
of  scientific  history  that  it  should  avail  itself  of  its  own  wherever 
found.  In  this  way  we  have  reached  what  would  otherwise  have 
been  inaccessible,  viz.,  certain  definitions  of  the  task.  We  have 
defined  the  limits,  we  have  fixed  the  basis,  we  have  as  was  shown  in 
another  connection  proved  the  unity,  and  we  have  consequently 
found  the  scientific  method  of  history.  This  is  neither  the  time  nor 
the  place  further  to  discuss  these,  but  they  are  realities.  Without  these 
definitions  the  advance  of  the  nineteenth  century  would  have  been 
as  futile  as  that  of  the  eighteenth. 

Let  us  turn  and  illustrate  these  contentions  in  considering  four 
great  names  of  our  epoch:  perhaps  not  the  greatest,  but  types  at 
least  of  the  best  in  four  great  lands.  The  names  are  those  of  Macaulay, 
Ranke,  Taine,  and  Bancroft.  Once  and  for  all  let  us  say  of  each  and 
every  one  of  them  that  he  was  a  man  of  immense  erudition;  of  perfect 
good  faith;  of  enormous,  tireless,  patient  industry;  of  trained  and 
chastened  intellect;  fully  aware  of  the  canons  of  historical  science 
and  determined  to  use  them  in  his  work.  Each  of  them,  moreover, 
marks  a  stage  and  a  quality  of  advance,  which  are  not  merely  note' 
worthy,  but  essential  to  our  purpose. 

The  greatest  German  and  the  greatest  French  historians  have  paid 
homage  to  Macaulay  as  certainly  the  foremost  English  historian, 
as  possibly  the  greatest  of  all  historians  since  Thucydides,  who,  of 
course,  in  other  respects  the  peer  of  the  modern,  far  surpasses  him  in 
philosophic  insight.  It  is  this  weakness  of  Macaulay  which  is  his 
strength.  He  is  distinctly,  avowedly,  a  man  of  his  time  and  place; 
British  of  the  British,  and  more  than  that  a  Victorian  Englishman, 


32  POLITICAL  AND   ECONOMIC  HISTORY 

an  admirer  of  wealth  and  rank,  proud  of  his  country  as  the  best  on 
earth.  It  is  the  pleasant  England  of  his  day  which  interests  him,  as 
it  interested  alike  his  own  countrymen  and  the  contemporary  world. 
Setting  out  to  explain  this  joyous  land,  he  found  and  his  readers 
found  that  the  fascinating  riddle  of  its  existence  could  be  read  clearest 
in  the  light  of  the  Whig  movements  then  continuing,  of  the  policies 
of  which  he  himself  was  an  eminent  supporter.  Not  in  any  sense 
a  philosopher,  the  truth  as  he  saw  it  was  not  an  analyzed  and  dis- 
sected truth,  not  an  abstraction,  but  a  cognizable  reality,  to  be 
known  and  judged  by  the  exercise  of  wholesome  common  sense. 

Heeren,  as  we  said  earlier,  had  set  forth  the  characters  of  the 
scientific  history  which  reckons  with  the  peoples,  the  colonies,  the 
economics,  the  commerce  of  the  world.  This  had  a  very  direct  bearing 
on  the  state  of  the  British  Empire.  Macaulay  likewise  knew  that,  to 
be  complete,  history  must  take  account  of  the  whole  earth  within  the 
limits  of  its  period.  These  conceptions  the  English  historian  with 
magisterial  power  incorporated  in  his  work  —  the  opening  chapters 
are  masterpieces  of  historical  generalization.  But  his  genius  went 
further,  it  took  scientific  history  from  the  university  into  the  home; 
for  the  language,  the  illustrations,  were  so  clear  and  so  interwoven 
with  the  tale  that  plain  men  felt  as  if  they  had  a  vision  of  grandeur 
not  vouchsafed  hitherto  to  them  or  to  their  predecessors. 

For  years  the  volumes  of  Macaulaj'-  sold  in  England  as  no  other 
book  sold,  and  in  America  the  numbers  of  copies  distributed  were 
second  in  number  only  to  those  of  the  Bible.  There  was  not  an 
important  language  of  the  Continent  into  which  the  glowing  pages 
were  not  translated,  and  in  many  there  were  several  rival  translations. 
The  truth  was  made  so  clear  and  was  so  manifestly  the  truth  that 
the  reading  world  felt  a  firm  foundation  beneath  its  feet.  That  the 
author  was  avowedly  utilitarian,  openly  a  British  patriot,  and 
intensely  a  Whig  partisan  only  served  to  create  the  effective  chiar- 
oscuro in  which  all  his  work  was  done.  He  had  been  so  unwearied 
a  student  of  folk-song  and  folk-lore  that  he  made  himself  what  is 
now  called  in  art  "  a  primitive  "  in  his  conception  and  understanding 
of  the  commonplace,  in  his  admiration  of  the  homely. 

It  is  doubtful  whether  the  relativity  of  knowledge,  either  the 
phrase  or  the  notion,  was  known  to  Macaulay.  For  him  the  plain 
truth  was  the  truth.  In  addition,  the  state  was  for  him  no  god, 
mysterious  and  omnipotent;  it  was  a  secular  association  existing 
only  to  assure  the  equality  of  citizens  before  the  law,  to  protect  life, 
liberty,  and  property.  In  the  enjoyment  of  political  liberty  all  other 
liberties  are  assured,  and  Macaulay  is  proud  of  that  possession  because 
he  sees  in  it  the  honor  of  man  and  of  men.  He  is  a  patriot  because  he 
has  inherited  this  honor  from  an  ancestry  which  suffered  for  it. 
Taine,  who  gives  soUd  reasons  for  his  opinion,  thinks  Macaulay 


HISTORY  IN  THE   NINETEENTH  CENTURY         33 

proved  all  he  said  as  forcibly  and  directly  as  he  stated  it,  thus  giving 
the  simple,  every-day  man  an  unshakable  confidence.  He  not  only 
takes  testimony,  he  weighs  the  veracity  and  intelligence  of  his  wit- 
nesses for  the  public  judgment.  Having  erected  on  this  foundation 
a  set  of  plain  principles,  he  draws  self-evident  conclusions  and  in  his 
generalization  he  shows  every  rung  of  the  ladder  as  he  climbs.  His 
style  and  discussion  are  direct  and  cumulative;  the  current  carries 
him  and  his  reader  right  onward  in  a  straight  line,  gathering  ever 
greater  force  until  the  flood  is  as  impetuous  as  the  Amazon  and  like 
it,  too,  as  broad  as  the  sea.  Facts,  ideas,  explanations,  the  enormous 
mass  of  scientific  material,  all  are  clad  in  a  style  which,  though 
harking  back  to  Thucydides,  Plautus,  and  Livy,  to  Petrarch,  Dante, 
and  Milton,  contains  an  elusive  something  which  is  born  from  none 
of  these,  such  is  its  sweeping  passion,  its  irresistible  eloquence. 

This  was  not  inspiration,  it  was  art:  the  result  of  infinite  pains- 
taking and  a  set  purpose.  On  a  first  rough  draft  he  interlined,  erased, 
corrected,  inverted,  restored,  elaborated,  until,  as  in  Balzac's  proof, 
the  original  was  overlaid  with  a  mass  of  words  illegible  to  all  except 
the  author,  who  then  at  his  leisure  wrote  his  printer's  copy  in  a  fine, 
bold,  confident  hand.  Prescott  saw  a  few  of  these  original  foolscap 
sheets  and  says  no  one  could  form  any  conception  of  the  amount  of 
labor  that  one  of  them  represents.  With  the  serenity  of  a  great  soul, 
with  a  religious  faith  in  the  power  of  truth;  confident,  like  Cervantes, 
that  history  was  sacred  because  where  truth  is,  there  is  God,  he 
carried  his  own  conviction  into  the  millions  of  readers  who  were 
fascinated  by  his  art.  This  art  was  impersonal,  precise,  even  cold, 
because  it  was  based  on  accuracy,  on  the  personal  knowledge  of 
contemporaries,  and  not  evolved  like  that  of  Carlyle  and  Froude 
from  the  depths  of  his  own  consciousness. 

Macaulay's  contribution  to  the  science  of  history  was  twofold:  the 
knowledge,  the  insight,  and  the  sympathy,  such  as  were  not  possible 
in  the  revolutionary  epoch  preceding  his,  an  epoch  when,  as  his  pre- 
decessor said,  "hearts  rejoice  or  bleed"  as  contemporary  events 
illume  the  past  with  a  light  "  from  the  flames  of  Tophet "  in  Carlyle 's 
lurid  phrase,  —  this,  and  secondly,  the  ripened  fruit  for  present  use, 
progress  along  the  lines  of  tradition,  the  way  to  preserve  and  improve 
what  the  fathers  had  won. 

The  second  of  our  great  names  is  that  of  a  man  who  was  still  more 
remote  from  emotional  influence,  for  he  was  not  a  man  of  affairs,  not 
a  statesman,  not  an  acolyte  of  the  social  hierarchy,  not  even  an  artist, 
but  a  scholar,  an  investigator,  and  a  teacher.  Leopold  von  Ranke 
revived  the  past  in  a  spirit  which  was  largely  that  of  an  erudite  lawyer 
without  a  case.  His  intimate  friend  was  Savigny,  and  as  for  him  it  is 
the  totality  of  law  which  had  to  be  studied  before  further  advance 
could  be  made,  so  for  Ranke  it  is  the  totality  of  history,  carefully 


34  POLITICAL   AND   ECONOMIC   HISTORY 

studied  in  the  light  of  laws  and  institutions,  and  in  the  proportions 
of  each  part,  that  determines  the  relative  values  of  scenes  and  events', 
that  fixes  the  style  and  structural  concepts  of  historical  description 
and  reconstruction.  When  Froude's  wild  theory  as  to  Henry  VIII's 
extraordinary  matrimonial  conduct  was  questioned  by  the  critics,  he 
replied  in  these  very  words:  "The  precipitancy  with  which  Henry 
acted  is  to  me  a  proof  that  he  looked  on  matrimony  as  an  indifferent 
official  act  which  his  duty  required  at  the  moment,  and  if  this  be 
thought  a  novel  interpretation  of  his  motives  I  have  merely  to  say 
that  I  find  it  in  the  statute  book ! "  Ranke  had  quite  another  notion  of 
how  official  documents  were  to  be  used,  and  with  their  use  his  name 
is  associated,  as  is  the  name  of  scarcely  another. 

Macaulay's  ultimate  criterion  was  not  found  in  the  edicts  and 
statutes  of  rulers,  not  in  the  correspondence  of  princes  seeking  to 
deceive  each  other  and  to  falsifj'  the  record;  but  in  the  consonance 
of  facts  with  the  great  events  which,  linked  one  with  the  other  and 
known  by  the  common  sense  of  mankind,  form  the  chain  of  history. 
Though  he  made  a  judicious  use  of  documents  he  had  not  the  blind 
faith  in  them  which  makes  their  devotees  ridiculous.  Nor  had  Ranke, 
though  above  all  else  he  was  a  student  of  diplomatic  correspondence. 
It  was  he  who  brought  the  archives  of  foreign  offices  into  the  vogue 
they  have  since  enjoyed  among  historians,  his  success  being  due,  of 
course,  to  his  critical  faculties  and  his  sanity;  for  sane  he  was, 
moderate,  modest,  and  disciplined  in  the  highest  degree.  Ranke's 
great  renown  was  firmly  founded  on  his  use  of  a  remarkable  series  of 
papers,  the  hitherto  unconsidered  series  of  reports  addressed  to  the 
Council  of  Ten  by  the  ambassadors  of  the  Venetian  Republic.  He 
might  easily  have  been  dazzled  by  so  unique  a  find  and  have  exag- 
gerated its  importance  out  of  all  proportion;  but  he  knew  thoroughly 
the  times  antecedent  and  the  times  consequent  to  those  he  was  mak- 
ing his  own,  and  he  fell  into  no  errors.  The  papers  in  hand  fixed  dates, 
places,  and  circumstances,  unerringly:  they  exhibited  the  quality, 
language,  and  character  of  the  public  business  so  as  to  permit  im- 
portant deductions;  they  illuminated  their  age  in  the  contemporary 
judgments  of  very  shrewd  observers.  But  Ranke  never  dreamed  that 
they  revealed  motives,  except  by  induction:  nor  that  they  deter- 
mined the  great  central  channel  of  events.  With  the  plodding  indus- 
try of  an  antiquary  he  felt,  groped,  peered  around  and  in  the  obscure 
comers  of  his  material  and  brought  forth  little  particles  of  fact  which, 
when  properly  assembled  with  the  great  facts,  made  possible  the 
tracing  of  sequence  and  the  revelation  of  design. 

Philosophically  Ranke  was  inclined  to  Hegelianism.  To  the  rela- 
tions of  a  people  with  its  habitat  he  paid  less  attention  than  his  famous 
contemporary  Curtius;  the  work  of  Buckle  and  the  physical  side  of 
history  were  indifferent  to  him.    It  was  the  cosmic  process  with 


HISTORY  IN  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY         35 

which  he  was  mainly  concerned,  the  working  of  a  universal  spirit 
as  revealed  by  outward  manifestations.  Of  this  he  strove  to  be  a 
dispassionate,  intelligent  onlooker  and  an  accurate,  sympathetic 
observer;  a  faithful  recorder,  whether  the  record  lends  itself  to  litera- 
ture or  not,  and  in  his  hands  for  the  most  part  it  did  not.  Nowhere 
in  his  voluminous  writings  is  there  any  passage  which  rises  to  the 
heights  reached  by  Mommsen  in  his  description  of  Csesar.  Profound 
as  was  the  scholarship  of  the  latter,  he  was  an  avowed  advocate  of 
imperialism,  the  cause  for  which  he  spent  his  life,  and  so  at  times 
his  passion  lifted  him  to  sublimity:  the  sober  Ranke  trod  the  solid 
earth.  His  was  not  merely  the  science  of  detail  like  that  of  Mommsen, 
it  was  an  orderly  array  both  of  thoughts  and  of  thoughts  about 
thoughts,  as  well  as  a  marshaling  of  facts.  For  this  reason  his 
attempts  at  a  universal  history  bear  the  stamp  of  creative  art.  It  is  as 
an  historical  architect  that  he  becomes  approximately  an  artist;  not 
in  rhetoric,  imagination,  or  enthusiasm.  Neither  an  interpreter  nor 
a  critic,  his  style  is  clear,  his  characters  forcibly  modeled,  his  defini- 
tions exact.  He  is  bold,  but  not  too  bold,  for  prudence  is  his  forte  and 
his  foible.  It  is  thus  that  he  raises  the  spirit  of  each  successive  age 
and  reveals,  one  by  one,  the  hidden  springs  of  action.  His  philo- 
sophical dogma  cannot  always  restrain  him,  and  there  are  pages  of 
his  which  are  masterpieces,  not  onlj'-  in  historical  reconstruction,  but 
in  historical  divination. 

Extremes  meet  in  the  world  of  history  as  elsewhere.  This  is  seen 
when  Taine  avows  himself  a  disciple  of  Macaulay,  as  he  virtually  does 
in  print  and  frequently  did  in  private  conversation.  Antipodal  in 
every  respect  to  the  Englishman,  the  Frenchman  yet  admired  Macau- 
lay  as  the  representative  of  everything  which  France  and  Taine  were 
not.  The  great  French  historian  was  an  embodied  contradiction, 
having  been  justly  styled  a  poet-logician  and  considered  to  possess 
a  philosophic  imagination.  What  he  openly  admired  in  England  were 
its  social  stratification,  its  sturdy  Protestant  common  sense,  its 
passion  for  liberty  and  for  the  traditions  of  its  history,  its  boisterous, 
proud,  and  energetic  spirit.  For  Latin,  Celtic,  ecclesiastical,  Roman 
England  he  had  a  contemptuous  disdain:  it  was  the  England  of 
Macaulay  which  was  the  country  of  his  soul.  But  he  could  not  there 
abide,  so  pitiless  and  merciless  was  his  logic.  His  philosophical  career 
began  in  Hegel,  passed  by  way  of  Spinoza,  and  ended  in  a  positivism 
compared  with  which  Comtism  was  a  weak  decoction.  His  earliest 
important  paper  was  the  outline  of  a  system  whereby  the  methods  of 
the  exact  sciences  could  be  applied  to  history  —  and  from  the  effort 
to  do  so  there  was  no  surcease  until  he  died.  Alone  of  the  pure 
materiahsts,  who  make  emotion  dependent  on  the  bodily  organism 
and  on  the  nervous  system,  he  carried  his  conviction,  amounting 
almost  to  bravado,  into  the  realm  of  practice.   Others  have  sketched 


36  POLITICAL  AND   ECONOMIC   HISTORY 

systems,  he  dared  to  apply  that  which  he  evolved.  He  was  the 
physiological  psychologist  in  the  laboratory  of  the  world.  It  goes 
without  saying  that  he  struggled  to  the  ridge  of  the  universe  of  man 
only  to  fall  over  it  into  a  gulf  of  complete  helplessness.  Avowedly  not 
a  pessimist,  certainly  not  an  optimist,  his  studied  attitude  of  impar- 
tiality turned  into  a  feeling  of  utter  hopelessness  and  resignation 
which  he  could  not  conceal  and  which  seemed  to  give  him  no  con- 
tentment; not  even  that  of  having  achieved. 

Yet,  as  he  marched,  he  incidentally,  like  Julius  Caesar,  besieged 
and  took  certain  flanking  citadels  in  operations  which  have  made  the 
course  of  scientific  history  much  safer  and  surer.  His  fierce  logic 
minimized  the  idea  of  common  sense  as  the  norm  of  reference;  his 
notion  of  rulers  and  their  dispatches  rendered  him  almost  contemptu- 
ous of  state  papers.  His  favorite  sources  were  contemporary  memoirs, 
and  these  he  used  in  great  abundance  and  with  consummate  skill. 
What  distinguishes  him  above  others  is  his  careful  regard  for  physical 
elements  in  history  and  the  penetrating  glimpses  he  gets  into  its 
motives  by  the  study  of  national  psychology,  clearly  mirrored  for 
him  in  national  art  and  national  literature.  His  famous  doctrine  of 
predominant  power  (faculte  maitresse)  set  forth  in  his  splendid  essay 
on  Livy,  shows  that  individuals  in  a  nation  are  begotten  and  con- 
trolled by  primordial  forces  imposing  on  all  certain  common  methods 
of  thought  and  phases  of  feeling.  Given  the  island  home  of  a  Germanic 
race,  with  its  peculiar  climate  and  the  rude  plenty  which  nature 
supplies,  he  boldly  sketches  step  by  step  the  course  of  English  thought 
and  conduct  as  delineated  in  her  art,  her  letters,  and  her  institutions. 
The  race,  the  home,  the  period  —  these,  if  understood,  make  history 
almost  an  exact  science  in  the  descriptive  sense :  and  in  that  only,  for 
prediction  is  carefully  to  be  avoided;  it  is  not  the  function  of  history. 

This  judgment  is  based  on  a  passion  for  the  Exact,  and  is  rooted 
in  the  philosophy  of  sensation  to  which  Taine  was  addicted.  As  we 
know  nothing  except  by  sensation,  so  we  know  nothing  but  phenom- 
ena. The  only  faculties  we  possess,  therefore,  are  those  of  analysis 
and  generalization.  Given  the  French  people,  its  environment,  and  the 
succession  of  its  states,  we  can  note  every  phenomenon,  explain  it, 
and  connect  it  with  its  causes  and  its  effects.  But  we  cannot  predict; 
because,  although  we  note  the  links  we  cannot  know  them  nor  see 
how  they  are  produced:  about  them  we  may  learn  infinitely  almost, 
but  what  they  are  and  how  they  work  we  may  never  know.  In  the 
sense  of  prediction  there  can  never  be  a  science  of  history,  because 
for  man  there  is  not  and  can  never  be  any  metaphysic  whatsoever. 

It  has  been  wittily  said  that  in  Taine 's  efforts  to  follow  the  mathe- 
matical curves  of  his  science,  he  generally  found  himself  off  at  a 
tangent  making  delightful  excursions  in  the  open  spaces  of  fancy  and 
of  art.   Certain  it  is  that  his  fancy  adorns  his  logic,  that  in  a  system 


HISTORY  IN   THE  NINETEENTH   CENTURY        37 

intended  to  strangle  imagination,  imagination  takes  extensive 
flights;  and,  hovering  everywhere,  induces  on  the  stiff  est  pages  a 
highly  artistic  treatment  and  an  attractive  style.  Taine's  very  axioms 
are  paradoxes:  in  the  French  Revolution  the  orgasms  of  liberty 
beget  a  despotism  fiercer  than  that  of  the  former  days;  the  fear  of 
centralization  getting  on  the  national  nerve  created  in  the  republic 
an  organism  more  unitary  than  that  of  the  displaced  monarchy; 
the  classical  spirit  was  the  sire  of  that  abstract  idealism  which  under- 
lies all  the  maladies  of  modern  French  life.  To  this  sort  of  inverted 
deduction  he  is  perfectly  resigned.  He  is  quite  as  hopeless  in  the 
sphere  of  the  individual  man.  It  is  the  human  beast  which  still  con- 
trols and  turns  the  man  into  the  "  carnivorous,  lascivious  "  brute  we 
see  about  us  in  such  overwhelming  numbers;  or,  at  the  other  pole, 
into  the  foolish  dreamer  with  a  "diseased  mind  and  disordered  body." 
His  detestation  for  what  is  loose  and  disorderly  explains  what  is 
perhaps  the. most  famous  of  his  paradoxes,  when  he  declared  that 
in  art  he  thought  the  sonata  was  as  beautiful  as  a  syllogism. 

These  three  historians  all  agree  that,  admitting  what  one  of  them 
would  have  called  the  necessitarian,  the  others  the  providential 
forces  of  history,  —  that  yet,  upon  the  tissue  which  they  weave,  the 
pattern  is  formed  by  the  will  of  man  in  the  exercise  of  the  choice 
which  is  offered  to  him  and  in  accordance  with  his  nature.  Even  so 
extreme  a  freethinker  as  John  Morley  admits  this.  Discoursing  of 
Burke's  analysis  of  historic  forces,  he  says:  ''History  has  strictly 
only  to  do  with  individual  men  as  the  originals,  the  furtherers,  the 
opponents,  or  the  represerftatives  of  some  of  those  thousand  diverse 
forces  which,  uniting  in  one  vast  sweep,  bear  along  the  successive 
generations  of  men,  as  upon  the  broad  wings  of  sea  winds,  to  new 
and  more  fertile  shores."  To  originate,  to  further,  to  oppose,  to 
represent,  an  historic  force,  is  quite  a  sufficient  moral  responsibility 
wherewith  to  burden  even  the  greatest  men. 

So  far,  what  we  seem  to  recognize  as  the  basic  considerations  of 
these  men  in  regard  to  scientific  history  are  the  following:  The  field 
must  be  considered  as  a  unit;  the  human  factors  are  no  longer 
heroes,  kings,  warriors,  or  diplomats,  merely  and  alone,  but  the 
people  as  well,  in  all  their  activities;  in  and  from  such  complexity 
of  persons  and  operations  it  appears  possible  to  disengage  not  relative 
but  absolute  truths  and  by  a  suitable  system  of  reasoning  to  elucidate 
principles  of  action  which  are  the  ripe  fruit  amid  the  leafy  perplexity 
of  the  boughs;  the  material  of  history  proves  thus  to  be  the  results 
of  comparative  study  of  politics  above  all,  but  likewise  of  law, 
institutions,  language,  beliefs,  race,  and  geography.  The  historian 
must  proceed  with  impartial  mind,  as  far  as  his  human  limits  permit, 
to  consider  and  use  both  the  matter  and  manner  of  his  science,  re- 
garding society  as  an  organism  growing  from  within  under  external 


38  POLITICAL  AND   ECONOMIC  HISTORY 

influences,  which  act  sometimes  as  checks,  sometimes  as  a  stim- 
ulus. 

I  venture  to  think  that  whatever  be  our  judgment  of  his  practical 
success,  the  vahdity  of  this  procedure  w^as  even  better  and  earlier 
perceived  by  an  American  pupil  of  Heeren  than  by  any  of  the  triad 
of  uncommon  men  we  have  been  considering.  And  to  all  that  the}'' 
possessed  he  added  another  element,  the  profound  conviction  of 
God  working  in  history;  his  reading  of  "philosophy  working  by 
examples"  was  "God  working  by  examples."  This  was  George 
Bancroft.  Contemporary  with  Macaulay,  Ranke,  and  Taine,  he 
was  their  peer  as  scholar,  philosopher,  or  statesman.  He  had  not 
perhaps  the  imagination  of  one,  nor  the  style  of  another,  nor  the 
dispassionate  judgment  of  another.  But  he  had  the  insight  and 
sympathy  to  catch  the  spirit  of  his  age  as  Macaulay  did  —  the  amaz- 
ing circulation  of  his  volumes  in  all  lands  proved  it.  Utopian  and 
poetic  he  is,  yet  his  pages  neither  flash  nor  dazzle;  they  commend 
themselves  by  sobriety  of  argument  and  solidity  of  research.  His 
use  of  state  papers  was  as  extensive  as  Ranke's,  his  appreciation  of 
contemporary  memoirs  was  as  keen  as  Taine's.  But  he  was  neither 
indifferent  nor  agnostic.  The  son  of  a  pious  Unitarian  clergyman, 
he  kept  the  Puritan  spirit  untarnished  to  the  end.  His  instinct  for 
immediacy,  for  direct  touch  with  the  springs  of  action,  made  him 
a  philosopher  from  his  youth  upward.  These  are  his  peculiar  qual- 
ities and  permeate  all  his  work.  With  the  discussion  goes  the  lesson: 
in  all  history,  truth  and  justice  reign  supreme.  The  wTiter  of  history, 
therefore,  must  observe  two  maxims:'  (1)  Distinguish  between 
original  authority  and  historical  memorials  or  aids;  by  the  former 
we  get  a  fact  recorded  at  first  hand,  by  the  second,  a  decision  of 
principle  or  authority;  (2)  represent  every  man  from  his  own 
standpoint,  judge  him  from  your  own.  These  acute  and  far-reaching 
principles  were  enough  in  themselves,  when  conscientiously  apphed, 
to  mark  his  work  as  original. 

His  philosophy,  however,  was  quite  as  original.  His  book  may  be 
considered  as  a  treatise  on  the  evolution  of  liberty  along  the  central 
axis :  this  axis  is  the  land  designated  by  Providence  as  fitted  not  for 
freedom's  relative  but  for  its  absolute  development.  Its  heterogene- 
ous population  brought  and  brings  from  all  other  lands  the  elements 
of  national  character,  and  by  this. compulsion  of  origins  the  environ- 
ment, though  eliminating  all  that  cannot  be  assimilated,  retains 
all  useful  elements,  incorporating  them  into  an  intricate  but  orderly 
whole.  Hence  Bancroft's  studies  in  universal  history,  interjected 
from  time  to  time  as  tributaries  to  the  main  narrative,  were  writ- 
ten with  a  consummate  skill  and  a  thorough  knowledge,  which 
found  him  readers  in  every  important  tongue  and  all  over  the 
civiUzed  world.    As  an  exhibit  of  the  divine  order,  he  further  holds, 


HISTORY   IN   THE   NINETEENTH   CENTURY         39 

history  is  an  organic  unity,  inspired  by  constant  forces.  Only  within 
such  an  organization  does  the  individual  secure  liberty,  since  there 
alone  his  faculties  of  will,  reason,  and  emotion  find  their  develop- 
ment in  operation,  with  and  against  the  consubstantial  faculties  of 
other  like  individuals.  Collective  man  determines  the  standards  of 
knowledge  and  of  conduct,  and  it  is  therefore  only  in  a  democracy 
that  the  possibility  of  human  perfectibility  may  be  realized.  This 
attitude  of  Bancroft's  mind  may  be  considered  as  typically  Ameri- 
can, and  as  the  capstone  of  the  system  used  and  approved  by  the 
nineteenth  century  in  writing  history.  Either  a  confidence  in  the 
moral  order  of  the  universe  and  in  God  as  its  author  is  the  motive 
power  of  our  rulers,  the  greatest  contemporary  history-makers; 
or  we  who  profess  it  and  elect  them  to  ofhce  are  vile  hypocrites 
with  a  portion  among  the  deceits  and  mirages  of  history. 

The  conclusions  here  presented  will  stand  the  test  of  the  minutest 
examination  bestowed  on  the  best  work  by  typical  masters  other 
than  those  we  have  named.  Further,  a  fair  analysis  of  their  theory, 
procedure,  and  art,  will,  I  believ^e,  compel  the  admission  that  if  the 
age  has  won  anything  it  has  won  everything.  Grounded  in  the  concept 
of  organic  evolution,  receptive  of  all  ancillary  learning,  jealous  of  its 
own  field  and  methods,  alert  for  typical  movements  and  truly  great 
men,  aiming  at  a  kind  of  representation  which  is  possibly  but  not 
necessarily  that  of  the  fine  arts,  history  as  now  written  is  scientific, 
not  as  a  philosophy  of  social  evolution  nor  as  an  exact  science  of 
nature,  human  or  otherwise,  but  as  a  practical  form  of  human 
biography  drawn  and  modeled  in  correct  proportion  and  outline. 
There  is  boundless  room  for  advance  in  supplement,  completion, 
illustration,  but  the  plan  has  been  sketched  and  the  basis  laid.  Some 
portions  of  the  great  advance  have  even  been  completely  shown  to 
move  in  perspective  and  in  color.  Either  this  achievement  is  all, 
or  it  is  nothing;  and  our  descendants  must  raze  everything  in  order 
to  begin  anew  the  weary  search  for  truth  among  the  ruins  of  the  past. 


THE  CONCEPTION  AND  METHODS  OF  HISTORY 

BY  JAMES  HARVEY  ROBINSON 

[James  Harvey  Robinson,  Professor  of  History,  Columbia  Universit}',  since  1895. 
b.  June  29,  1863,  Bloomington,  Illinois.  A.B.  Harvard,  1887;  A.M.  ibid.  1888; 
Ph.D.  Freiburg-im-Br.  1890.  Lecturer  in  European  History,  University  of  Penn- 
sylvania, 1891-92;  Associate  Professor,  ibid.  1892-95;  Acting  Dean  of  Bar- 
nard College,  1900-01 .  Author  of  The  German  Bundesrath,  Philadelphia,  1891 ; 
Petrarch,  the  First  Modern  Scholar;  An  Introduction  to  the  History  of  Western 
Europe;  Readings  in  European  History;  and  numerous  historical  pap>ers.] 

The  topic  assigned  to  me  by  the  distinguished  scholars  who  planned 
the  programme  of  the  historical  department  of  this  congress  is  "  The 
Conception  and  Methods  of  History,"  a  theme  so  vast  and  intricate 
that  its  mere  definition  and  delimitation  would  alone  more  than 
occupy  the  time  allotted  for  this  morning's  session.  I  have  therefore, 
with  their  permission,  confined  myself  in  this  paper  to  one  only  of 
the  many  lines  of  thought  suggested  by  the  general  title;  or,  rather, 
I  have  given  a  specific  trend  to  the  general  discussion,  which  remains 
very  general  nevertheless.  I  propose  to  consider  only  the  rather 
singular  relations  between  history  and  literature,  a  question  by  no 
means  either  simple  or  isolated,  but  one  which  is  closely  bound  up 
both  with  the  current  conceptions  of  history  and  with  the  methods 
of  dealing  with  it. 

The  close  alliance  of  history  and  literature  is  so  natural  and 
intimate,  reaching  back  as  it  does,  perhaps,  to  the  very  beginnings  of 
both,  that  to  question  its  legitimacy  seems  at  once  gratuitous  and 
perverse.  It  would  seem  that  history,  at  any  rate,  had  no  cause  to 
complain  of  the  union,  since  literature,  if  it  be  not  responsible  for 
history's  very  existence,  has  at  least  tenderly  nurtured  it  and  assured 
it  both  permanence  and  renown.  Without  literature  history  would 
never  have  had  its  muse,  and  would  at  best  have  led  an  obscure, 
ignoble,  and  precarious  existence.  The  union  has  been  a  long  and 
happy  one.  Until  recently  no  one  has  suspected  its  perfect  pro- 
priety —  nay,  inevitability,  or  thought  of  putting  asunder  what 
appeared  to  be  divinely  conjoined. 

Yet  had  history  been  less  subservient  than  it  has  always  shown 
itself  and  more  fully  conscious  of  its  high  mission,  it  could  never  have 
made  the  sacrifices  of  independence  and  good  faith  necessary  to  avoid 
constant  bickerings  and  misunderstandings  with  its  mate,  for  it 
would  be  difficult  to  find  two  companions  more  widely  at  variance  in 
their  essential  spirit  and  purpose  than  history  and  literature.  It  is 
the  purpose  of  this  paper  to  determine  the  nature  and  extent  of  this 
incompatibility  which  may  some  day  lead  to  a  divorce,  or  at  least  to 
a  separation;  when,  if  justice  be  done,  history  should  be  assigned 


CONCEPTION  AND  METHODS  OF   HISTORY         41 

a  handsome  alimony,  since  it  cannot  forego  the  support  that  it  has 
come  to  rely  upon  and  which  moreover  it  amply  deserves  in  view 
of  its  long  and  unquestioning  fidelity  to  literature. 

For  a  time,  indeed,  it  seemed  that  history  was  being  led  away  by 
that  formerly  potent  rival  of  literature,  theology.  This  was  due  to 
the  mighty  influence  of  St.  Augustine,  who  not  only  turned  historian 
himself,  but  induced  that  gloomy  young  man  Orosius,  to  compose  a 
little  treatise  which  by  reason  of  the  strong  appeal  it  made  to  a  dom- 
inant conviction  of  succeeding  ages  served  to  misdirect  history  into 
thorny  by-paths  for  a  thousand  years  or  more.  Toward  theology 
history  showed  the  same  ready  compliance  and  uncomplaining  self- 
abnegation  as  toward  literature;  but  happily  it  has  regained,  or  is 
rapidly  regaining,  its  independence,  although  some  observers  may 
still  complain  that  it  shows  itself  at  times  all  too  considerate  of 
theology's  feelings. 

Deserting  a  figure  which  now  becomes  embarrassing,  it  is  clear 
that  history,  hke  psychology  and  politics,  is  an  old  discipline  which 
suffers  much  from  certain  ancient  associations  and  prejudices  from 
which  the  newer  sciences,  the  physical  in  especial,  are  nearly  exempt. 
It  possesses  no  special  terminology  adapted  to  its  specific  uses,  and 
historical  writers  content  themselves  with  vague  and  uncertain 
expressions  which  are  in  their  nature  literary  rather  than  scientific. 

Historical  students  do  not  have  their  own  books  prepared  to  meet 
their  peculiar  needs,  as  does  the  psychologist,  chemist,  and  mathe- 
matician. It  is  true  that  a  few  technical  works  exist,  Potthast's 
Wegweiser,  Jaffe's  Regesta  Pontificum,  Richter's  Annalen,  Molinier's 
Sources  de  VHistoire  de  France,  and  a  goodly  number  of  dissertations 
written  by  callow  aspirants  for  academic  honors.  There  are,  too, 
special  treatises  on  the  various  Hilfsimssenschaften,  or  auxiliary 
sciences,  of  palaeography,  diplomatics,  lexicography,  etc.  But  in 
general  the  historical  writer  takes  the  public  into  his  confidence  and 
reserves  only  footnotes  and  appendices  for  himself  and  his  fellow 
workers,  wherein  he  may  slyly  elude  the  eye  of  the  public  and  of  the 
publisher;  and  escaping  for  the  instant  from  the  necessity  of  con- 
ciliating the  casual  reader,  he  may  express  himself  with  such  accu- 
racy and  scientific  precision  as  he  is  capable  of. 

In  no  other  field  except  that  of  history  is  it  a  reproach  to  fail  to  be 
"interesting,"  that  is,  to  catch  and  hold  the  attention  of  at  least  the 
more  serious  public.  Consequently  in  no  other  subject  do  purely 
literary  ideals  so  constantly  invade  the  scientific.  By  literary  ideals 
I  do  not  of  course  mean  clearness,  order,  and  propriety  of  diction,  or 
even  vigorous  and  effective  presentation  such  as  might  be  found  in 
a  well-written  geology  or  history  of  taxation.  I  mean,  rather,  those 
stylistic  expedients  which  belong  to  fiction  and  poetry,  oratory  and 
the  drama,  without  which  these  would  collapse  and  fall  away  into 


42  POLITICAL   AND   ECONOMIC   HISTORY 

dust  and  ashes.  With  history,  however,  as  a  science  these  have 
nothing  to  do.  From  a  scientific  standpoint  they  have  worked 
incalculable  harm  in  the  past,  and  are,  I  believe,  one  of  the  chief 
obstacles  in  the  way  of  historical  progress  to-day. 

I  must  confess  here  that  I  am  by  no  means  confident  that  many  of 
you  will  sympathize  with  what  I  have  been  saying.  To  some  of  you 
the  incompatibility  of  literary  ideals  and  expedients  with  conscien- 
tious historical  writing  will  seem  so  obvious  as  scarcely  to  merit  seri- 
ous discussion.  You  will  urge  that  a  great  part  of  our  more  serious 
treatises,  especially  those  which  we  owe  to  Germany,  are  free  from 
the  malign  influence  which  I  seem  here  to  be  perversely  exaggerating. 
On  the  other  hand  some  among  you  will  see  in  what  has  been  said  only 
the  promise  of  another  dreary  tribute  to  Dr.  Dryasdust  with  whom 
Scott  vainly  expostulates  at  the  opening  of  Ivanhoe.  The  following 
illustrations  will,  however,  as  I  trust,  meet,  to  some  extent,  the  quite 
pardonable  objections  to  which  my  general  thesis  would  seem  to  be 
open. 

Among  the  scientific  principles  which  should  guide  the  historical 
student,  there  is  none  more  important  than  the  conception  of  the 
continuity  or  unity  of  history.  The  antithesis  of  the  unity  of  history 
is  the  inveterate  habit  of  dividing  the  past  into  periods,  epochs,  eras, 
and  ages,  wuth  apparent  disregard  of  the  now  generally  conceded 
unity  and  continuity.  Few  serious  students  of  general  history  to-day 
would  feel  tempted  to  defend  any  of  the  schemes  of  periodizing 
which,  from  the  days  of  St.  Jerome  down,  it  has  pleased  historical 
writers  to  devise.  With  few  exceptions  they  are  so  obviously  literary 
or  theological  in  their  origin  that  they  have  only  an  archaeological 
interest.  We  are,  nevertheless,  still  under  the  potent  spell  of  the  older 
writers.  For  instance,  Professor  Bury,  in  the  introduction  to  his 
excellent  edition  of  Gibbon's  great  work,  says:  "  Not  the  least  import- 
ant aspect  of  the  Decline  and  Fall  is  its  lesson  in  the  unity  of  history. 
.  .  .  The  title  displays  the  cardinal  fact  that  the  empire  founded  by 
Augustus  fell  in  1453;  that  all  the  changes  which  transformed  the 
Europe  of  Marcus  Aurelius  into  the  Europe  of  Erasmus  had  not 
abolished  the  name  and  memory  of  the  Empire."  Here  one  of  our 
most  patient  and  exacting  scholars  discards  the  proposition  that 
Rome  fell  in  476  as  a  purely  literary  one  without  scientific  justifica- 
tion. But  he  applauds  Gibbon  for  fixing  another  definite  date  still 
more  arbitrary  than  the  first  for  its  destruction. 

While  we  are  ready  to  acknowledge  the  law  of  continuity  as  fun- 
damental, we  equally  seek  excuses  for  disguising  its  importance, 
both  in  our  teaching  and  writing.  This  must  be  attributed  primarily 
to  the  exigencies  of  effective  presentation.  The  steady  and  placid 
current  of  a  river  rarely  makes  the  deep  impression  that  is  produced 
by  a  cataract.    We  have  an  innate  love  of  the  dramatic.    Hamack 


CONCEPTION   AND  METHODS  OF  HISTORY  43 

has  said  that  the  medieval  mind  discovered  no  more  venerated 
attribute  of  deity  than  Wilkurlichkeit,  that  is,  the  seemingly  arbi- 
trary interference  in  the  general  trend  of  human  and  natural  affairs. 
For  a  thousand  years  the  miracle,  not  the  inconspicuous  course  of 
natural  law,  riveted  men's  attention.  Our  inherent  love  of  "  a  good 
story,"  our  anxiety  to  conciliate  the  interest  of  our  readers  and 
students,  our  excusable  partiality  for  effective  situations,  all  com- 
bine to  put  the  rather  arid  and  esoteric  idea  of  mere  continuity  at 
a  disadvantage. 

There  are  two  phases  of  the  continuity  of  history  which  should  be 
distinguished.  In  its  most  commonly  accepted  use,  it  is  the  observed 
fact  that  every  human  institution,  every  generally  accepted  concep- 
tion, every  important  invention,  is  but  the  culmination  of  a  long 
line  of  progress  reaching  back  as  far  as  we  have  the  patience  or 
knowledge  to  tirace  it.  In  spite  of  this  truth,  it  is  certainly  possible  to 
establish  rather  satisfactory  periods  in  the  development  of  any  single 
human  interest.  While  no  doubt  the  antecedents  of  the  invention  of 
printing  by  movable  types  are  many,  there  is  nevertheless  a  sudden 
and  abrupt  change  for  the  world  at  large  when  the  printing  of  a 
whole  Bible  was  completed  at  Mayence  in  the  year  1456.  Certainly 
we  may  very  properly  begin  an  era  in  land  transportation  when  a 
steam  locomotive  makes  its  first  trip  on  a  railroad. 

But  no  single  human  interest  is  isolated  from  innumerable  con- 
current interests.  This  brings  us  to  the  broader  conception  of  the 
continuity  of  history  which  depends  upon  the  complexity  of  men's 
affairs.  A  somewhat  abrupt  change  may  take  place  in  some  single 
institution  or  habit,  but  a  sudden  general  change  is  absolutely  incon- 
ceivable. An  individual  may,  through  some  change  of  environment, 
through  bereavement  or  a  malignant  disease,  be  quickly  and  funda- 
mentally metamorphosed,  but  even  this  is  extremely  rare  as  any  one's 
experience  will  tell  him.  If  all  the  habits  and  interests  of  individuals 
are  considered,  it  will  be  found  that  only  in  the  rarest  cases  are  any 
great  nimiber  of  these  altered  in  any  brief  period.  In  the  case  of 
society,  no  general  change  has,  so  far  as  we  know,  ever  taken  place 
abruptly.  Every  reformer  knows  how  hopeless  it  is  to  attempt  to 
alter  even  a  single  popular  habit. 

Now  it  is  obvious  that  in  so  far  as  the  historian  confines  himself 
to  some  single  dominant  interest  in  the  past,  the  sharp  division  of  the 
subject  into  periods  is  not  by  any  means  wholly  preposterous  or 
misleading.  One  can  hardly  object  to  periods  in  the  history  of 
philosophy,  in  the  history  of  mechanical  invention,  in  the  history  of 
painting  or  music.  When,  however,  we  attempt  to  deal  with  the 
general  history  of  mankind,  sharp  divisions  are  absolutely  impossible. 
Politically  the  tenth  of  November,  1799,  marks  a  period  in  French 
history.   At  that  time,  there  begins  an  abrupt  and  a  thorough  regu- 


44  POLITICAL  AND   ECONOMIC  HISTORY 

lation  of  the  relations  of  the  administrative  bodies  and  a  happy 
adjustment  of  the  finances  of  the  country,  both  of  which  exercised 
a  deep  influence  upon  the  French;  and  yet  compared  to  the  sum 
total  of  the  interests  of  the  French  people  at  that  time  which  are 
susceptible  of  historical  investigation,  this  revolution  was  almost  in- 
significant. Domestic  habits,  artistic  instincts,  agricultural  methods, 
philosophical  tenets,  popular  religious  beliefs,  none  of  these  were 
directly  affected  by  Napoleon's  accession  to  power. 

Periods  of  history  have,  then,  in  the  past  depended  for  their 
plausibility  upon  the  emphasis  laid  upon  conspicuous  events  or  upon 
a  single  class  of  human  interests  to  the  exclusion  or  neglect  of  the 
great  body  of  normal  and  slowly  changing  preoccupations.  Behind 
the  craving  for  definite  periods  lay  the  literary  sense  rather  than  the 
scientific.  Even  to-day  the  historian  would  be  lost  were  he  to  be 
deprived  of  such  convenient  expressions  as  the  Middle  Ages,  the 
Renaissance,  the  Reformation,  the  Revolution.  Yet  aU  of  these, 
from  the  standpoint  of  the  conscientious  scholar,  are  only  slipshod 
literary  subterfuges  which  we  must  constantly  explain  and  qualify 
until  they  lose  any  scientific  meaning  which  they  may  appear  at  first 
sight  to  enjoy. 

Here  we  come  face  to  face  with  one  of  the  chief  problems  which 
historical  students  must  attempt  to  solve.  How  far  is  periodizing 
scientifically  possible  in  view  of  the  inexorable  continuity  in  human 
affairs  which  we  all  know  to  exist?  What  shall  be  substituted  for  the 
old  misleading  divisions?  This  matter  has  received  far  less  attention 
than  it  merits.  I  have  no  solution  to  offer  for  a  difficulty  which  has 
taxed  master  minds.  I  can  do  little  more  than  foster  discontent  with 
the  current  phraseology  —  the  first  step  toward  better  things. 

Periods  in  history  may  perhaps  be  best  viewed  as  mere  divisions 
into  chapters,  indications  on  the  part  of  the  writer  of  those  stages 
in  his  narrative  where  the  reader  may  most  safely  and  conveniently 
lay  down  his  book  for  the  moment.  The  reader  must  not  be  misled 
into  thinking  that  they  correspond  to  real  breaks  in  the  course  of 
human  affairs.  He  should  see  that  they  are  first  and  foremost  literary 
expedients.  Moreover,  the  divisions  should  be  so  made  as  to  substan- 
tiate rather  than  shatter  the  historical  continuity.  Like  the  cunningly 
devised  serial  romance,  each  installment  should  so  end  as  to  avoid  any 
impression  of  finality.  The  reader's  suspense  corresponds  with  the 
historian's  deep-seated  sense  of  continuity. 

It  is  clear  that  the  periods  commonly  adopted  in  treating  general 
European  history  are  open  to  many  serious  objections,  and  there  are 
indications  that  they  will  be  gradually  discarded  or  fundamentally 
modified.  The  chief  difficulties  are  perhaps  the  following :  The  early 
Middle  Ages  are  disassociated  from  the  later  Roman  history  in  a  way 
seriously  to  hamper  the  student.  For  a  great  part  of  those  ideas  and 


CONCEPTION  AND   METHODS   OF  HISTORY         45 

institutions  which  we  roughly  class  as  medieval  were  fully  developed 
before  the  break-up  of  the  Empire.  Secondly,  there  are  many  reasons 
for  discarding  the  period  commonly  known  as  the  Renaissance,  which 
is  at  present  the  source  of  the  most  vicious  misapprehensions.  The 
later  Middle  Ages,  beginning  with  the  Crusades,  Abelard,  and  the 
universities,  the  revival  of  law  studies,  the  developing  Gelduirthschaft, 
might  without  serious  danger  of  misapprehension  be  regarded  as 
closing  with  the  Protestant  Revolt,  the  final  secession  of  a  consider- 
able portion  of  Europe  from  the  most  powerful  and  all-pervading 
institution  of  the  earlier  periods.  Lastly,  the  commonly  accepted 
period  beginning  with  the  supposed  opening  of  the  French  Revolu- 
tion in  1789  could  with  great  advantage  be  extended  back  to  the 
middle  of  the  eighteenth  century,  thus  putting  the  whole  democratic 
movement  in  a  truer  light  than  hitherto.  The  French  Revolution, 
in  the  sense  of  a  permanent  reform  of  earlier  institutions  which  gave 
the  example  for  similar  changes  in  other  European  countries,  was 
really  nearly  complete  by  1790;  and  the  emphasis  which  has  hitherto 
been  placed  upon  the  assembling  of  the  Estates  General  in  1789  has 
served  to  put  the  whole  situation  in  a  wrong  light. 

The  divisions  I  suggest  make  no  claim  to  be  definitive  or  even 
novel.  They  all,  however,  have  the  advantage  of  bringing  into  pro- 
minence the  historical  continuity  of  which  we  may  never  safely  lose 
sight. 

Should  the  historian  learn  to  meet  the  demand  that  he  parcel  out 
the  past  into  convenient  portions  without,  however,  rending  its  unity 
or  dividing  its  substance,  he  will  still  have  other  serious  obstacles  to 
surmount  in  his  task  of  reconciling  our  historic  knowledge  with  the 
exigencies  of  literary  presentation.  Foremost  among  these  difficulties 
is  that  of  expressing  the  degrees  of  certainty  with  which  various  his- 
toric data  can  be  established.  Every  investigator  is  keenly  aware  that 
our  information  in  regard  to  the  past  varies  all  the  way  from  the  most 
precarious  and  suspicious  rumors  to  reasonably  reliable  reports.  We 
sometimes  have  manifold  and  seemingly  accurate  accounts  of  trivial 
matters,  sometimes  only  the  most  meagre  and  unsatisfactory  hints 
in  regard  to  great  changes  and  enduring  institutions.  The  literary 
spirit,  uncurbed  in  the  past,  has  commonly  led  the  writers,  upon 
whom  the  historian  must  rely,  to  bequeath  us  notices  of  the  excep- 
tional and  startling  rather  than  of  the  humdrum  routine,  some 
knowledge  of  which  is  so  essential  if  one  desires  to  form  an  adequate 
conception  of  the  general  conditions  and  prevailing  tendencies  of  a 
particular  period. 

Few  accepted  historic  facts,  whether  trivial  or  momentous,  are 
susceptible  of  anything  like  absolute  demonstration.  The  modern 
newspaper  is  an  historic  source  of  unparalleled  accuracy  and  relia- 
bility compared,  let  us  say,  with  Suetonius's  Life  of  Julius  Ccesar,  Ein- 


46  POLITICAL  AND   ECONOMIC  HISTORY 

hard's  Annals,  The  Chronicle  of  Lambert  of  Herzfeld,  Erasmus's  Letters, 
or  the  Memoirs  of  Baron  de  Marbot.  Yet  we  take  the  newspaper  report 
none  too  seriously,  but  sedulously  discount  even  its  most  precise 
details.  Not  long  ago  I  read  in  a  Chicago  newspaper  a  brief  biography 
of  a  friend  of  mine  who  had  been  elected  to  an  important  academic 
position.  The  writer  of  the  notice  lived  in  the  same  city  with  the  one 
whose  life  he  described,  and  his  information  was  such  that  he  could 
hardly  have  received  it  from  any  one  except  my  friend  himself  or  one 
of  his  family.  A  report  prepared  under  similar  conditions  in  regard 
to  Hugh  Capet  at  the  time  of  his  accession  to  power  would  be  regarded 
by  the  historian  as  a  precious  document  of  unimpeachable  veracity. 
Yet  the  newspaper  biography  contained  a  dozen  inexcusable,  almost 
inexplicable  blunders. 

The  historical  investigator  is  constantly  tempted  faute  de  iriieux 
to  take  his  sources  far  too  seriously.  Sometimes  he  is  awakened  from 
his  dogmatic  slumber  by  the  appearance  of  a  new  source  which 
exposes  the  fallacies  of  one  hitherto  revered  for  its  accuracy  and 
conscientious  detail.  No  one,  for  example,  can  read  the  simple  and 
sincere  account  of  Marie  Antoinette  as  she  appears  in  the  Memoirs 
of  Madame  de  Campan  without  accepting  it  as  essentially  true,  yet 
the  publication  by  Arneth  of  the  correspondence  of  the  Count  de 
Mercy  with  the  queen's  mother  puts  the  poor  girl  in  quite  another 
light.  Why  should  we  receive  the  Li/e  0/  Charlemagne  by  Einhard 
with  greater  confidence  than  the  Memoirs  of  Madame  de  Campan? 
Einhard,  as  was  long  ago  pointed  out,  was  fascinated  by  the  style  of 
Suetonius,  from  whom  in  his  enthusiasm  he  even  goes  so  far  as  to 
borrow  convenient  phraseology.  Here  surely  we  find  an  invasion  of 
the  literary  spirit,  which  might  easily  deflect  the  writer  from  the 
particular  aims  which  are  most  esteemed  in  a  biographer. 

The  historian  has,  however,  no  accurate  means  of  representing 
his  own  dubiety,  strongly  as  he  may  be  conscious  of  it.  Much  less  can 
he  impart  his  doubts  and  uncertainties  to  his  reader.  For  the  singular 
details  of  the  death  and  burial  of  Alaric,  which  appear  even  in  our 
elementary  text-books,  we  have  only  the  report  of  the  Goth,  Jordanes, 
an  ignorant  writer  of  the  meanest  ability  who  lived  over  a  century 
later  than  the  events  he  narrates.  He  appears  to  be  guilty  of  the  most 
palpable  errors,  in  those  cases  where  he  can  be  checked  by  Zosimus, 
who  is  generally  regarded  as  a  trifle  more  conscientious  than  the  Goth. 
Should  there  not  be  some  way  of  indicating  clearly  the  different 
degree  of  certainty  that  we  enjoy  for  this  event,  and,  let  us  say,  the 
circumstances  which  accompanied  the  death  of  Charles  the  First  of 
England  or  of  President  McKinley?  Portions  of  the  Bible  have  been 
ingeniously  printed  in  several  colore,  so  that  the  reader  may  distin- 
guish the  several  sources  which  have  been  used  in  the  narrative. 
Should  a  similar  system  be  introduced  in  our  general  historical  works, 


CONCEPTION  AND   METHODS  OF   HISTORY         47 

we  should  find  that  the  burial  of  Alaric,  or  the  way  in  which  Hugh 
Capet  became  king,  would  appear  in  faint,  scarce  legible  letters  of 
whose  purport  we  could  not  be  certain,  while  the  first  meeting  of  the 
French  Convention  or  the  abdication  of  Napoleon  would  be  sharply 
defined  and  unmistakable. 

One  of  the  most  important  and  hopeful  results  of  the  modern 
critical  spirit  is  the  special  attention  which  for  some  decades  has  been 
given  to  the  origin  and  composition  of  the  sources.  The  monk  of 
St.  Gall  occupies  a  very  different  place  from  what  he  did  a  century 
ago,  and  no  one  would  any  longer  rank  William  of  Tyre  with  Falcher 
of  Chartres  as  an  authority  for  the  First  Crusade.  The  development 
of  Quellenkritik  is  perhaps  the  most  important  form  which  the  incipi- 
ent revolt  of  history  against  literature  has  yet  taken.  It  is  the  most 
scientific  phase  of  historical  investigation,  both  in  its  spirit  and  results, 
and  is  now  properly  considered  an  essential  part  of  the  training  for 
those  who  propose  to  devote  themselves  to  historical  work.  Yet  as  a 
leaven  it  works  slowly  and  imperfectly;  slowly  because  of  a  singular 
lethargy,  due  to  manifold  causes,  which  makes  the  perpetuation  of  an 
ancient  error  so  much  easier  than  its  rectification.  In  a  recent  work 
on  the  history  of  classical  scholarship  one  may  find  the  exploded 
legend  of  the  portentous  year  One  Thousand  appearing  once  more, 
although  in  the  footnotes  the  author  has  inserted  references  to  the 
various  contributions  which  render  the  hypothesis  wholly  untenable. 
Sybel,  in  the  second  edition  of  his  critical  discussion  of  the  sources 
of  the  First  Crusade,  is  encouraged  to  note  that  during  the  forty  years 
which  had  elapsed  since  he  issued  his  first  edition  most  scholars  had 
come  to  accept  his  results,  and  he  expresses  the  not  unreasonable 
hope  that  in  the  course  of  another  forty  years  his  corrections  may 
find  their  way  into  our  popular  manuals.  This  does  not  seem  too 
optimistic.  Nevertheless,  it  should  be  remembered  that  Voltaire 
discarded  the  notion,  which  goes  back  at  least  to  Luther's  time,  that 
the  classical  Renaissance  began  with  the  fall  of  Constantinople  and 
the  dispersion  of  the  Greek  scholars.  So  tenacious,  however,  are 
rooted  historic  misapprehensions  that  only  the  other  day  a  classical 
scholar  of  repute  unhesitatingly  elaborated  the  old  view  before  an 
intelligent  audience.  It  will  require  some  decades  still  before  an 
explanation  of  such  obvious  literary  charm  will  be  permitted  to  go 
the  way  of  Pope  Joan  and  of  William  Tell. 

Quellenkritik  works  imperfectly,  as  well  as  slowly,  because,  at  pre- 
sent at  least,  a  great  part  of  our  historical  material  lies  outside  its 
range.  A  few  sources,  like  the  life  of  St.  Columban,  which,  with  many 
other  lives  of  the  saints,  has  been  acutely  analyzed  by  Bernard 
Krusch,  may  be  shown  to  be  the  result  of  accretions  belonging  to 
different  ages.  In  the  field  of  recensions  and  false  attributions  Quel- 
lenkritik is  at  its  best.   I  think  that  I  am  right,  however,  in  saying 


48  POLITICAL   AND   ECONOMIC   HISTORY 

that  it  does  not  in  general  attempt  to  estimate  the  rehability  of 
sources  of  undeniable  authenticity  as  regards  their  author  and  unity 
of  composition. 

It  is  possible  that  psychology  may  some  time  come  to  the  aid  of 
history.  Not  only  may  the  study  of  the  psychology  of  the  individual 
suggest  better  methods  of  dealing  with  the  character,  aspirations, 
and  motives  of  historical  persons,  but  that  new  and  interesting  sub- 
section of  psychology  to  which  German  thinkers  are  turning  their 
attention,  the  psychology  of  evidence  or  report,  —  die  Psychologie 
der  Aussage,  —  may  furnish  a  scientific  method  for  estimating  more 
exactly  than  we  have  hitherto  been  able  to  do  the  relation  between 
the  sources  and  the  objective  facts  which  they  purport  to  record. 

Yet  in  spite  of  these  hopes  history  is  and  must  always  remain,  from 
the  standpoint  of  the  scientific  observer,  a  highly  inexact  and  frag- 
mentary science.  This  is  due  not  only  to  the  fact  that  it  concerns 
itself  with  man,  his  devious  ways  and  wandering  desires,  which  can 
never  all  be  brought  within  the  compass  of  clearly  defined  laws,  but 
also  because  it  must  forever  rest  upon  scattered  and  unreliable  data, 
the  truth  of  which  we  too  often  have  no  means  of  testing.  Popular 
historiography  has  in  the  past  been  smugly  unconscious  of  this  melan- 
choly truth,  and  in  writing  for  the  public  even  conscientious  scholars 
find  themselves  suppressing  their  doubts  and  uncertainties,  conceal- 
ing their  pitiable  ignorance,  and  yielding  to  the  temptation  to  ignore 
yawning  gaps  at  whose  brink  history  must  halt  even  though  litera- 
ture can  bridge  them  with  ease. 

Let  us  now  turn  from  the  painful  theme  of  our  ignorance,  over 
which  literature  has  persistently  sought  to  throw  a  kindly  veil,  to 
the  influence  which  literary  motives  have  exercised  upon  the  content 
of  history.  Obviously  this  influence  must  predominate  so  long  as 
history  depends  for  its  interest  and  charm  first  and  foremost  upon 
the  story  that  it  has  to  tell.  The  anecdote  or  reminiscence,  the  start- 
ling situation,  the  signal  calamity,  the  deeds  of  heroes,  the  machin- 
ations of  the  wicked,  are  the  primitive  materials  for  history,  and  are 
readily  elaborated  into  literary  form.  In  this  type  of  composition 
superficiality  and  inaccuracy  are  readily  condoned.  If  the  reader  is 
amused,  he  is  satisfied;  he  scarcely  thinks  of  asking  whether  the 
information  which  comes  to  him  easily  and  pleasantly  has  any  inward 
meaning  or  even  whether  it  is  probably  true. 

The  newspapers  afford  us  a  daily  illustration  of  history  whose 
proportion  and  perspective  is  determined  by  literary  ideals,  —  of  a 
somewhat  low  order  to  be  sure ;  but  they  are  the  same  motives  that 
determined  the  selection  of  events  to  be  recorded  a  thousand  years 
ago.  The  spirit  is  the  same  in  the  Annals  of  Xanten  of  the  ninth 
century  and  in  the  New  York  T ivies,  which  lies  on  my  desk  as  I 
write.  From  the  former  we  learn  that  on  the  fourth  of  February,  848, 


CONCEPTION   AND   METHODS   OF   HISTORY  49 

toward  evening,  it  lightened  and  thunder  was  heard.  That  in  852 
"  The  steel  of  the  heathen  glistened;  excessive  heat,  a  famine  followed. 
There  was  not  fodder  enough  for  the  animals.  The  pasturage  for  the 
swine  was  more  than  sufficient."  The  Times  tells  us  on  its  first  page 
that  on  September  11,  1904,  at  two  o'clock  in  the  morning  a  rat  bit 
a  baby  in  Jersey  City.  On  the  same  day,  during  the  morning  service, 
a  bad  man  set  off  a  firecracker  in  Westminster  Abbey,  and  a  pigeon 
lighted  on  the  minute-hand  of  a  clock  in  York,  Pennsylvania,  and 
remained  there  full  fifteen  minutes. 

Until  within  a  hundred  years  or  so  history  was  frankly  narrative, 
except  when  it  bethought  itself  to  be  instructive.  Under  the  latter 
term  may  properly  be  included  both  the  moral  and  theological  inter- 
pretations by  which  writers  sought  to  enhance  the  dignity  of  what 
would  otherwise  seem  a  mere  story  and  bind  together  into  an  edifying 
whole  the  scattered  episodes  and  arid  annals  which  constituted  their 
knowledge  of  the  past.  The  moral,  even  the  theological,  attitude 
toward  history  has  by  no  means  disappeared.  The  admirable  address 
prepared  by  Henry  C.  Lea  for  the  last  meeting  of  the  American  His- 
torical Association  is  still  fresh  in  the  minds  of  American  scholars. 
It  is  directed  against  Lord  Acton's  defense  of  an  immutable  moral 
standard,  which  should  be  ever  before  the  mind  of  the  historian  and 
guide  him  in  judging  the  past  and  determining  whether  it  be  good  or 
evil.  Dr.  Lea  discovers  no  historic  basis  for  such  an  assumption. 
Historically,  good  and  evil  are  and  must  always  be  relative.  This  is  a 
conclusion  toward  which  scientific  study  of  the  past  has  for  some  time 
been  tending.  When  it  is  generally  accepted,  it  will  do  much  to  eman- 
cipate the  historian  from  some  of  the  most  serious  disabilities  under 
which  he  has  labored. 

Since  the  middle  of  the  eighteenth  century  new  interests  other 
than  the  literary,  moral,  and  theological  have  been  rapidly  develop- 
ing, which  have  exercised  a  remarkable  influence  upon  historical 
research,  radically  altering  its  spirit  and  aims,  and  broadening  its 
scope.  Montesquieu's  Spirit  of  Laws  reviews  the  past  with  the  purpose 
of  establishing  a  purely  scientific  proposition,  namely,  the  relativity 
of  all  human  institutions,  social,  political,  educational,  economic, 
legal,  and  military.  The  discussion  attending  the  drafting  of  the  first 
French  constitution  served  to  stimulate  an  interest  in  constitutional 
history  which  has  never  flagged.  Indeed,  to  not  a  few  scholars  this 
particular  branch  of  research  appears  to  constitute  history  par 
excellence.  Yet  even  in  this  chill  region  one  may  discover  now  and 
then  a  glow  of  warm  partisanship,  which  suggests  that  science  has 
not  yet  done  its  perfect  work.  But  we  need  Freeman  as  well  as 
Stubbs,  and  Waitz  as  well  as  Fustel  de  Coulanges. 

Political  economy  has  wrought  a  still  more  radical  change  in  the 
content  of  history  than  has    the  constitution-making  of  the  last 


50  POLITICAL  AND   ECONOMIC   HISTORY 

century.  It  emphasizes  a  wholly  new  group  of  factors  in  the  life  of 
mankind,  to  which  but  the  scantest  attention  was  given  before  the 
nineteenth  century.  It  has  brought  out  clearly  the  crudity  and  super- 
ficiality of  many  ancient  and  long  approved  explanations  of  historical 
phenomena  and  substituted  new  solutions  which  have  become  gen- 
erally accepted.  Without  conceding  the  arrogant  claims  sometimes 
made  by  political  economy  to  be  able  to  explain  everything  in 
the  past,  few  historical  students  will  question  its  power  to  explain 
more  than  any  other  branch  of  social  science.  Greatly  as  the  modern 
attention  to  institutions  and  to  economic  conditions  has  served  to 
enrich  the  field  of  historical  research,  it  is  clear  that  they  leave  out  of 
consideration  matters  far  too  important  to  be  neglected,  educational, 
religious,  aesthetic,  moral,  and  intellectual.  These  will  doubtless 
continue  to  form  the  subject-matter  of  special  disciplines,  where  they 
may  be  developed  with  every  attention  to  technical  detail.  Yet 
experience  has  shown  that  things  so  intimately  connected  cannot 
be  artificially  separated  without  the  danger  of  grave  loss.  Both 
psychology  and  the  history  of  religion  have  successfully  shown  the 
constant  interconnection  and  interaction  of  all  spiritual  and  intellect- 
ual phenomena,  for  it  is  the  same  individual  who  is  at  once  religious, 
aesthetic,  moral,  and  intellectual.  May  there  not  then  be  a  new  task 
for  the  historian  who,  while  taking  advantage  of  all  that  has  been 
contributed  by  those  who  have  devoted  themselves  to  political,  insti- 
tutional, and  economic  history,  understanding  these  in  their  broadest 
sense,  shall  write  a  history  of  the  inner  man,  his  range  of  knowledge, 
his  tastes,  his  ideas  of  the  world,  and  of  himself?  This  would  have  little 
in  common  on  the  one  hand  with  the  older  narrative  history,  domi- 
nated as  it  was  by  literary  ideals  and  given  to  moral  applications,  or 
on  the  other  hand  with  technical  departments  of  historical  research, 
of  which  there  is  an  ever-increasing  number.  There  are  abundant 
indications  that  the  history  of  culture  is  now  outgrowing  its  rather 
ill-starred  infancy  and  will  some  day  dissipate  the  gloomy  forebodings 
with  which  certain  distinguished  prophets  cast  its  horoscope. 

The  foregoing  brief  sketch  of  the  relations  of  history  to  litera- 
ture, rude  and  incomplete  as  it  is,  enables  us  to  foresee  the  probable 
outcome  of  the  tendencies  which  have  been  noted.  Scientific  history 
is  opposed  in  spirit  and  method  to  literature,  which  has  its  own 
lofty  ideals,  but  ideals  which  should  never  have  been  imposed  on 
history.  History  is  emancipating  itself  from  its  long  servitude,  but 
easily  falls  back  into  its  former  bondage.  Yet  the  historian  will  more 
and  more  boldly  appeal  to  his  own  fellow  scholars,  as  do  the  repre- 
sentatives of  other  sciences;  and  so  freed  from  the  restraints  imposed 
by  the  tastes  of  the  public  and  their  want  of  special  knowledge, 
history  will  develop  a  technical  literature,  the  prerequisite  of  pro- 
gress. In  time  this  will  react  upon  popular  history,  which  will  slowly 


CONCEPTION  AND   METHODS  OF  HISTORY  51 

become  scientific  in  the  sense  that  modem  popular  chemistry  or 
zoology  is  scientific.  For  the  scientific  has  become  during  the  past 
century  a  dangerous  rival  of  the  literary  interest. 

The  progress  of  history  as  a  science  must  depend  largely  in  the 
future  as  in  the  past  upon  the  development  of  cognate  sciences,  — 
politics,  comparative  jurisprudence,  political  economy,  anthropology, 
sociology,  perhaps  above  all  of  psychology.  It  is  these  sciences 
which  have  modified  most  fundamentally  the  content  of  history, 
freed  it  from  the  trammels  of  literature,  and  supplied  scientific  canons 
for  the  study  of  mankind.  They  are  the  auxiliary  sciences  of  history 
in  a  far  deeper  sense  than  are  paleography,  diplomatics,  or  even 
philology.  The  sciences  relating  to  mankind  will  hereafter  dominate 
the  work  of  the  historian.  His  task,  it  will  be  seen,  is  nothing  less 
than  the  synthesis  of  the  results  of  special  sciences,  a  task  so  grand 
and  comprehensive  that  it  will  speedily  wean  him  altogether  from 
literature,  for  no  poet  or  dramatist  ever  set  before  himself  a  nobler 
or  a  more  inspiring  task,  or  one  making  greater  demands  upon  the 
imagination  and  the  resources  of  expression  than  that  which  now  lies 
before  the  historian. 


SECTIONS   A  AND  B 
HISTORY   OF   GREECE,  ROME,  AND   ASIA 


SECTIONS  A  AND  B 
HISTORY   OF   GREECE,  ROME,  AND  ASIA 


{Hall  3,  September  21,  10  a.  m.) 

Chairman:  Professor  Thomas  D.  Seymour,  Yale  University. 
Speakers:  Professor  John  P.  Mahaffy,  University  of  Dublin. 

Professor  Ettore  Pais,  University  of  Naples.     Director  of  the 

National  Museum  of  Antiquities,  Naples. 
Professor  Henri  Cordier,  Ecole  des  Langues  Vivantes  Orientales, 
Paris. 
Secretary  :  Professor  Edward  Capps,  University  of  Chicago. 

The  Chairman  of  this  Section,  Professor  Thomas  D.  Seymour,  of 
Yale  University,  when  introducing  the  speakers,  called  attention  to 
the  fact  that  "never  before  have  the  minds  of  scholars  been  less 
prejudiced  in  the  examination  of  the  relations  between  Greece  and 
Asia.  The  most  enthusiastic  Hellenist  no  longer  feels  bound  to  claim 
that  by  a  sort  of  parthenogenesis  all  culture  had  its  rise  on  Greek 
soil,  with  no  seed  sown  or  influences  received  from  early  civilizations. 
And,  on  the  other  hand,  the  Orientalist  has  learned  that  the  achieve- 
ments of  the  Greeks  and  Romans  are  not  to  be  explained  by  an 
examination  of  the  early  influences  which  they  received.  As  in  the 
case  of  an  individual,  the  personal  element  is  paramount,  but  the  cir- 
cumstances of  infancy  and  early  childhood  may  be  as  important  and 
interesting  in  the  case  of  a  nation  as  in  that  of  an  individual.  The 
material  for  our  joint  discussions  has  been  accumulating  rapidly,  and 
we  are  just  beginning  to  hear  one  of  the  most  important  witnesses, 
—  Crete.  Though  many  old  doubts  and  questions  are  settled  forever, 
many  new  questions  arise  and  call  loudly  for  an  answer." 


THE  EXPANSION  OF  GREEK  HISTORY 

BY   JOHN    PENTLAND    MAHAFFY 

[John  Pentland  Mahaffy,  Professor  of  Ancient  History,  University  of  Dublin, 
since  1871.  b.  Chaponnaire,  on  Lake  Geneva,  Switzerland,  1839.  Trinity 
College,  Dublin,  B.A.  1859;  M.A.  1863;  Fellow,  ibid.  1864;  D.D.  ibid.  1886; 
Mus.D.  ibid.  1891.  Author  of  Commentary  to  Kant's  Critique;  Social  Life  in 
Greece  from  Homer  to  Menander;  Rambles  and  Studies  in  Greece;  A  History  of 
Classical  Greek  Literature;  The  Story  of  Alexander's  Empire;  The  Greek  World 
under  Roman  Sway;  Problems  in  Greek  History;  The  Empire  of  the  Ptolemies.] 

Mr.  Chairman,  and  Gentlemen,  —  I  feel  it  no  small  honor  to  be 
selected  for  the  prominent  duty  of  delivering  an  opening  address  on 
this  momentous  occasion.  For  we  may  call  it  a  great  intellectual  mar- 
riage of  Europe  with  America,  to  which  all  the  sciences,  both  histor- 
ical and  positive,  are  invited  with  equal  hospitality.  And  thus  while 
some  are  sending  their  inquiries  across  vast  realms  of  space,  others 
like  ourselves  are  reaching  back  across  millenniums  of  time;  while 
some  are  probing  the  constitution  of  the  minutest  atoms  of  matter, 
others  like  ourselves  are  exploring  the  rudiments  of  human  society. 
Both  studies  are  essential  to  the  progress  of  this  our  twentieth  cen- 
tury. For  if  the  civilized  man  differs  broadly  from  the  savage,  in  that 
he  is  in  process  of  understanding  and  controlling  the  forces  of  nature, 
he  differs  more  essentially  perhaps  in  this,  that  he  strives  with  eager 
interest  to  comprehend  the  annals  of  the  past  —  the  long  struggles, 
the  successes,  the  failures  of  our  forerunners  to  emerge  from  a  con- 
dition a  little  higher  than  the  brute  into  a  condition  a  little  lower 
than  the  angels.  This  vast  study  is  of  necessity  to  be  prosecuted  in 
compartments,  if  for  no  other  reason  because  our  race  has  been 
fertile  in  devising  languages,  wherever  human  society  began  its  organ- 
ization. Their  number  is  enormous.  The  best  judges,  Terrien  de  la 
Couperie,  Archibald  Sayce,  have  told  me  that  there  are  not  less  than 
eight  hundred  known,  not  to  speak  of  the  hundreds  that  may  have 
disappeared.  And  without  knowledge  of  his  speech,  we  can  gain  but  a 
superficial  knowledge  of  the  speaker.  Our  happy  lot  in  this  Section  is 
to  be  concerned  with  Greek  —  not  only  the  most  perfect  of  all  the 
organs  of  communication  ever  devised  by  man,  but  one  in  which  our 
knowledge  has  in  this  generation  attained  an  enormous  expansion,  in- 
somuch that  our  investigation  of  that  people  and  its  civilization  has 
been  as  progressive  as  any  study  that  could  be  named.  The  number 
of  new  texts  discovered  is  such  that  no  living  man  can  know  them  all. 
Each  one  of  us  that  has  explored  has  added  scores  of  new  words  to  the 
Greek  Lexicon,  dozens  of  new  facts  to  our  knowledge  of  the  Greeks; 
and  so  we  may  say  with  truth,  that  while  the  literature  of  the  other 
great  classical  language,  Latin,  has  stood  still,  or  gained  but  trifling 
increment,  Greek  is  growing  by  leaps  and  bounds,  giving  the  he  to  the 
narrow  scientist,  who  would  thrust  it  from  its  high  place  in  our  edu- 


THE   EXPANSION   OF   GREEK  HISTORY  57 

cation,  because  it  has  been  branded  in  the  false  jargon  of  his  crowd  as 
a  dead  language.  My  duty  here  is  to  show  you  the  relations  which 
have  grown  up  between  Greek  political  history  and  the  sister  studies 
in  our  day;  how  fruitful  researches  and  explorations  have  told  upon 
our  knowledge  of  Greek  history,  and  more  especially  how  the  cen- 
turies that  went  before  and  those  that  followed  after  the  golden  age 
of  Greek  culture  are  emerging  both  from  the  gray  dawn  of  obscure 
origins  and  the  lurid  twilight  of  confused  decadence,  into  the  order 
and  proper  sequence  of  rational  history.  In  attempting  this  huge 
task  I  hope  I  may  gain  your  earnest  attention.  I  know  you  will 
vouchsafe  me  your  generous  indulgence.  I  may  also  forewarn  you 
that,  for  obvious  reasons,  Professor  Pais,  my  colleague  in  the  matter, 
has  agreed  with  me  that  each  of  us  will  prosecute  that  branch  of  the 
subject  which  he  has  made  the  special  study  of  his  life. 

When  I  was  a  boy  and  first  plunged  into  Greek  history,  the  begin- 
ning of  our  knowledge  was  the  Iliad  of  Homer.  We  were  taught  by 
Niebuhr,  and  still  more  explicitly  by  Grote,  that  all  the  legends  of 
the  Greeks  concerning  their  earlier  settlements  and  expansion  were 
the  mere  play  of  fancy,  quite  possibly  pure  inventions,  in  any  case 
only  admissible  into  history  as  a  picture  of  the  national  mind  in  a 
certain  stage,  at  a  certain  epoch.  Even  the  facts  narrated  by  Homer 
were  within  the  range  of  fiction;  the  society  which  he  painted  was 
only  real  in  so  far  as  the  poet  reflected  his  own  times  and  the  life  of 
men  around  him.  And  no  doubt  Grote  and  his  school  were  perfectly 
right  that  the  uncorroborated  statements  of  legend  by  a  poet,  nay, 
even  the  early  genealogies  which  commence  with  the  gods,  are  but 
the  wreck  which  the  stream  of  time  leaves  about  some  chance  obstacle 
that  succeeds  in  staying  its  course.  Thus  we  arrived  at  the  skepticism 
of  Sir  George  Cox  and  Sir  George  Lewis,  in  my  youth  very  active  vol- 
canoes, but  now  happily  extinct,  that  no  Greek  history  is  credible 
till  after  the  middle  of  the  seventh  century,  b.  c.  ;  and  I  myself  have 
contributed  my  share  in  showing  that  the  early  Olympic  Register 
was  not  the  contemporary  and  continuous  record  of  early  facts,  but 
the  fabrication  of  a  learned  theorist.  And  this  destructive  criticism 
of  mine,  bowed  aside  as  a  paradox  when  it  appeared,  is  accepted  by 
the  recent  historians  as  a  pretty  obvious  deduction  from  our  facts, 
either  with  or  without  the  mention  of  the  critic  who  first  ventured  to 
declare  it. 

But  have  we  now  no  corroboration  of  our  body  of  early  Greek 
legends,  and  if  we  have,  from  whence  did  we  obtain  it?  The  man, 
Schliemann,  who  opens  the  last  epoch  of  research  into  early  Greek 
history,  was  not  a  scholar,  or  a  man  of  literary  habits,  but  a  man  of 
enthusiasm  for  Homer,  and  of  boundless  energy  in  carrying  out  his 
mind.  He  had  shown  his  ability  by  making  a  large  fortune  early  in 
life  out  of  nothing  but  his  brains,  and  when  I  tell  you  that  he  made 


58  HISTORY   OF   GREECE,   ROME,   AND  ASIA 

most  of  it  in  this  country,  and  as  a  stranger,  you  have  at  least  one 
measure  of  his  talent  which  you  will  easily  appreciate.  He  had  the 
singularity  to  devote  half  of  that  fortune  to  exploring  the  Homeric 
sites,  and  thus  proving  the  historic  value  of  the  Iliad  and  Odyssey, 
And  he  went  to  work  with  the  spade,  at  first  ignorantly,  for  he  dug 
holes,  which  is  the  most  destructive  form  of  inquiry  known,  instead 
of  taking  off  layers  or  strata  of  earth,  as  he  learned  to  do  in  his  later 
years.  He  found  less  than  he  expected  or  believed,  so  far  as  he  hoped 
to  find  and  thought  he  had  found  the  actual  tombs  of  Agamemnon 
and  Clytemnestra,  or  any  direct  evidence  of  the  Homeric  story.  But 
when  Homer  speaks  of  the  fortified  Tiryns,  the  much  golden  Mykense, 
the  sacred  Ilion,  Schliemann  found  far  more  than  he  had  ever  divined; 
for  he  disclosed  to  the  astonished  Hellenists  of  his  day  a  whole  rich 
primitive  civilization,  which  subsequent  exploration  found  to  be  not 
peculiar  to  Argolis,  but  spread  over  most  of  Greece,  being  carried  by 
trade  oversea  across  the  ^gean,  and  recurring  even  in  distant  Egypt. 
This  Mykensean  civilization,  as  we  now  call  it,  is  known  by  its 
handicrafts  and  arts,  above  all  by  its  pottery,  its  gold  and  silver  orna- 
ments, its  beehive  tombs,  its  elaborate  palaces.  And  so  wide  were  its 
ranges  in  transmarine  commerce,  that  we  have  found  not  only 
Egyptian  scarabs,  but  ostrich  eggs  from  inner  Africa,  and  Baltic 
amber  among  its  treasures.  Three  questions  were  immediately  raised 
concerning  this  large  discovery:  first,  how  old  was  it?  secondly,  was 
it  identical  with  Homer's  civilization,  or  not?  And  if  not,  was  it 
indeed  Greek?  Its  great  age  was  settled  not  merely  by  the  archaic 
character  of  its  art,  and  its  very  small  use  of  iron,  but  still  more 
clearly  by  the  occurrence  of  early  Egyptian  articles,  dating  from  about 
1400-1200  B.  c,  and  showing  that  intercourse  of  Egypt  with  Greece 
was  far  older  than  the  Homeric  age.  There  was  also  this  negative 
evidence,  which  I  alone  had  pressed  on  Schliemann  before  he  com- 
menced his  work,  I  inferred  from  the  total  ignoring  of  Mykense  by 
iEschylus,  whose  tragedies  ought  to  have  been  enacted  there,  that 
in  his  day  the  practical  knowledge  of  the  city  was  gone,  and  that  it 
had  already  then  been  long  destroyed.  I  forewarned  him  that  he 
would  find  there  no  Greek  coins  or  inscriptions.  He  found  no  writing 
of  any  sort  whatever.  But  as  we  now  know  that  in  the  old  Cretan 
remains  the  inscriptions  were  on  clay  tablets,  which  are  easily  de- 
stroyed by  exposure  to  rain,  I  think  it  possible  that  he  may  have 
overlooked  some  such  documents.^ 

As  regards  the  correspondence  of  the  remains  with  Homeric 
pictures,  the  contrasts  seem  to  me  rather  greater  than  the  likenesses. 
The  armor  was  undoubtedly  the  model  of  the  Homeric  weapons;  the 
tombs  have  some  Greek  features;  but  on  the  whole,  the  question 
whether  the  epoch  was  one  of  purely  primitive  culture,  or  of  some- 
•  That  is  Mr.  Arthur  Evans's  opinion  also. 


THE  EXPANSION  OF   GREEK   HISTORY  59 

thing  earlier  passing  into  early  Greek  culture,  was  left  very  doubtful. 
A  better  knowledge  of  the  Troy  that  Schliemann  has  excavated,  and  of 
the  remains  of  Cnosos  in  Crete,  now  in  the  act  of  being  recovered 
for  us  by  the  zeal  and  skill  of  Mr.  Arthur  Evans,  have  thrown  much 
light  upon  these  incunabula  of  Greek  history.  The  most  interesting 
point  regarding  the  Trojan  work  recovered  by  Schliemann  was  its 
great  rudeness,  when  compared  with  that  of  Tiryns  and  Mykena. 
For  the  Homeric  poems  had  led  us  to  believe  that  the  culture  of 
Troy  was  fully  as  advanced  as  that  of  the  invading  Greeks.  We  owe 
to  Dr.  Dorpfeld  the  further  discovery  that  the  Ilios  of  Schhemann 
was  not  the  sister  in  time  of  Mykense,  but  an  older  and  deeper  stratum, 
and  probably  one  thousand  years  earlier.  The  Mykencean  stratum, 
through  which  Schliemann  had  pierced  without  recognizing  it,  was 
found  on  a  higher  level  all  round  Schliemann 's  excavations,  and  was 
found  also  in  every  way  to  correspond  to  the  Greek  work  of  the 
Mykenaean  period.  This  proved  that  an  enormously  old  culture  had 
taken  possession  of  the  shores  of  the  Mediterranean,  and  that  even 
the  Mykenaean  inherited  from  a  long  series  of  spiritual  ancestors  the 
culture  which  seems  to  us  so  archaic. '  The  discoveries  of  Mr.  Evans 
not  only  tended  (as  usual)  to  corroborate  the  general  features  of  the 
Greek  legends  about  King  Minos,  for  example,  his  sea  power,  shown 
by  his  unfortified  palace  near  the  seaboard,  but  proved  that  at  this 
early  stage  two  hitherto  unsuspected  forms  of  writing,  one  in  rude 
pictures,  the  other  in  linear  script,  were  in  use  in  Crete,  and  doubt- 
less therefore  throughout  the  coasts  of  the  eastern  Mediterranean. 
If  these  texts,  scratched  or  impressed  upon  clay  tablets,  and  certainly, 
I  think,  not  Greek,  are  ever  deciphered,  we  shall  know  more  clearly 
the  character  and  the  provenance  of  the  race  that  inhabited  these 
coasts  and  islands  during  the  second  millennium  before  the  Christian 
era.  In  my  opinion  that  race  will  prove  to  be  non-Hellenic,  and  even 
non- Aryan,  so  that  the  boast  of  the  Athenians  and  other  Greeks  that 
they  were  an  indigenous  race  will  be  once  more  refuted.^ 

But  here  the  historian  has  recourse  not  to  artistic  remains,  to  pot- 
tery, or  to  building,  but  to  the  evidence  of  the  sister  sciences  of  anthro- 
pology, and  still  more  of  linguistics.  The  former  science  has  yielded 
but  poor  results.  The  variety  of  the  physical  types  of  skulls  is  such 
that  we  can  only  infer  a  great  mixture  of  races  in  Greece,  without  the 
predominance  of  either  Aryan  or  pre-Aryan  types.    Such  at  least  is 

*  Under  the  lava  of  a  prehistoric  eruption  from  that  great  submarine  and  still 
active  volcano,  of  which  Santorin  and  Therasia  (the  ancient  Thera)  form  the 
outward  slopes,  there  were  found  thirty  years  ago  the  remains  of  what  was  aptly 
called  by  the  French  a  prehistoric  Pompeii  —  human  bones  within  rude  houses, 
with  remains  of  rude  pottery,  and  even  gold  ornaments. 

'^  But  I  must  warn  you  that  excellent  authorities,  Rohde,  Reisch,  think  differently, 
and  think  the  Mykenaean  builders  the  direct  ancestors  of  the  Homeric  Greeks.  On 
the  other  hand  Mr.  Ridgeway,  in  his  most  remarkable  unfinished  book.  The  Early 
Age  of  Greece,  while  he  maintains  that  the  earlier  race  differed  materially  from  the 
Achseans  of  Homer,  —  he  calls  them  Pelasgians,  —  yet  regards  them  as  Aryan. 


60  HISTORY   OF   GREECE,  ROME,   AND   ASIA 

the  conclusion  of  Paul  Kretschmer,  whose  work  on  primitive  Greece 
embodies  most  of  the  latest  knowledge.^  The  results  of  hnguistic 
inquiry  are  far  more  important.  Starting  from  the  fact  that  there  are 
elements,  in  the  old  Greek  that  we  know,  still  inexpHcable,  that  there 
are  formations  of  place-names  which  have  all  the  air  of  being  non- 
Aryan,  Kretschmer  has  compared  the  relics  we  have  of  the  languages 
of  Asia  Minor,  excluding  those  of  the  Aryan  type.  His  conclusion  is 
that  inter-related  languages  of  a  non- Aryan  type  were  spread  all  over 
the  seaboard  of  Asia  Minor,  and  that  the  features  of  these  languages 
which  remain  are  also  to  be  found  in  Hellenic  place-names.^  Hence 
the  science  of  language  warrants  us  in  assuming  that  Aryan  invaders 
found  all  over  Greece  and  Asia  Minor  an  eariier  population  with,  if 
not  unity,  at  least  kinship,  in  the  grammatical  structure  of  their 
speech,  and  therefore  probably  not  primitive  or  savage,  but  provided 
with  some  degree  of  civilization.  Hence  the  earliest  Greek  culture, 
even  if  Cretan  and  Mykensean  work  were  Greek,  may  be  regarded  as 
a  composite  civilization,  and  the  fascinating  task  of  future  inquirers 
will  be  to  assign  to  the  different  layers  of  population  their  respective 
shares  in  the  great  result.  In  such  investigations  all  the  sister  sciences 
must  lend  a  hand  to  the  historian  —  linguistics,  anthropology,  archseo- 
logy,  and  above  all  he  must  possess  that  highest  quality  in  any  scien- 
tific man,  the  imagination  which  combines  facts,  which  strikes  out 
theories,  which  makes  research  methodical  by  bringing  it  under  fixed 
and  leading  ideas,  which  turns  the  valley  of  dry  bones  into  the  habita- 
tion of  living  men.  The  ancient  times  of  Greek  history  are  therefore 
a  progressive  study,  in  the  truest  sense  of  the  word.  Grote  discarded 
the  myths  as  evidence,  he  even  ignored  the  living  testimony  of  the 
everlasting  hills  and  the  many  voices  of  the  ever-intruding  sea,  and 
wrote  his  great  work  in  a  London  study.  E.  Curtius,  a  generation  later, 
equipped  himself  by  long  residence  and  travel  in  the  glens  and  fiords  of 
Greece,  and  if  in  political  understanding  he  was  far  inferior  to  the 
English  statesman,  in  picturesqueness,  and  in  his  feeling  for  the  real 
life  behind  the  myths,  he  made  a  long  step  in  advance.  Another  gen- 
eration passes  by,  and  we  have,  among  many  able  books,  the  newest 
and  best  in  the  history  of  Mr,  Bury.  His  opening  chapters  seem  cen- 
turies ahead  of  Grote,  generations  ahead  of  Curtius.  For  in  the  last 
twenty  years  excavations  in  many  parts  of  Greece  have  added  masses 
of  new  evidence.  Egyptology  and  general  linguistics  have  contributed 
their  share,  and  as  the  force  of  genius  in  the  individual  brings  up  from 
the  darkness  of  the  sub-conscious  self  the  long-forgotten  lessons  of 
the  past,  so  the  power  of  Minos,  the  long  succession  of  human  homes 
on  the  hill  of  Ilion,  the  builders  of  the  great  fort  of  Tiryns,  are  rising 
from  prehistoric  night  into  the  morning  of  Greek  history. 

•  Einleit.  in  die  Gesch.  der  griech.  Sprache  (Gottingen,  1896),  cap.  n. 

*  Op.  cit.  p.  292. 


THE  EXPANSION  OF   GREEK  HISTORY  61 

Let  us  now  return  from  our  odyssey  into  Cimmerian  darkness, 
and  from  visiting  the  shadows  of  departed  heroes,  to  the  shores  of 
historic  Greece,  and  inquire  whether  modern  genius  and  modern 
industry  have  not  added  something  to  that  more  precise  knowledge 
which  we  owe  to  the  Uterature  of  the  classical  epoch.  And  here,  too, 
we  shall  find  that  the  gain  is  momentous,  and  the  promise  of  future 
increment  fair  beyond  our  hopes.  But  that  is  so  because  our  whole 
method  of  investigation  has  been  enlarged,  and  because  we  have 
developed  the  relations  of  Greek  philology  and  history  to  many 
kindred  researches.  We  do  not  indeed  grow  weary  of  analyzing  and 
commenting  on  our  Greek  historians,  though  that  process  has  been 
likened  to  the  squeezing  of  the  last  drops  of  juice  from  the  exhausted 
lemon.  But  since  we  learned  from  our  early  travelers,  notably  from 
Colonel  Leake,  that  Greek  history  must  be  studied  in  Greece;  since 
the  French  government,  more  than  half  a  century  ago,  took  the  lead 
in  founding  an  archaeological  school  at  Athens,  the  spade  and  the 
measuring-rod  have  been  applied  to  verify  and  correct  the  narratives 
of  Herodotus,  Thucydides,  and  Xenophon.  A  crowd  of  inscriptions 
have  been  extracted  from  the  soil,  or  from  medieval  walls  into  which 
they  were  built.  The  modern  writer  dare  not  put  his  pen  to  paper 
without  searching  the  great  collections  of  these  inscriptions,  to  which 
the  learned  journals  are  perpetually  adding  fresh  material.  For  in 
imitation  of  the  French,  the  Germans  and  the  Greeks  have  endowed 
their  archaeological  schools,  and  produce  their  Transactions  in  Athens. 
The  English  and  the  Americans  have  followed  suit  with  private 
enterprise,  and  so  a  large  body  of  experts  has  been  let  loose  upon  the 
country,  and  has  added  to  the  capital  enterprise  of  Schliemann  at 
Mykenae  and  Argos  many  careful  investigations  at  Athens,  Olympia, 
Delphi,  Delos,  Megalopolis,  the  Argive  Herseum,  and  a  dozen  other 
sites.  All  these  have  yielded  us  topographical,  historical,  and  social 
evidence.  Our  difficulty  now  is  not  only  to  find,  but  to  compass  the 
evidence  which  is  accruing,  and  which  is  scattered  through  a  number 
of  learned  journals,  such  as  the  French  Bulletin  de  correspondance 
hellenique,  the  German  Mittheilungen  des  archeologischen  Instituts, 
the  English  Journal  of  Hellenic  Studies,  to  mention  but  three  out 
of  many.  The  men  who  have  by  universal  consent  done  most  for  the 
better  understanding  of  Greek  history  are  not  the  Greek  professors 
at  home,  but  the  brilliant  directors  of  the  French  and  the  German 
schools,  who  have  been  able  to  indulge  their  genius  with  ample 
appointments  and  with  the  experience  of  many  years  of  splendid 
industry.  It  is  of  course  impossible  for  me  in  this  general  discourse 
to  turn  aside  to  the  particular  inquiries  which  have  thrown  light  on 
particular  points  of  Greek  history.  The  excellence  of  these  studies 
consists  in  their  minute  and  accurate  detail.  I  need  only  quote,  as 
specimens,  the  masterly  analysis  of  the  Greek  theatre  derived  from 


62  HISTORY   OF   GREECE,   ROME,   AND   ASIA 

a  comparative  study  of  divers  extant  remains  by  Dr.  Dorpfeld;  the 
same  author's  rehandhng  of  the  famous  topographical  chapter  in 
Thucydides  concerning  the  surroundings  of  the  Athenian  Acropolis, 
the  demonstration  by  Mr.  Grundy  that  Thucydides  could  be  as  fallible 
as  any  ordinary  writer  in  his  account  of  the  bay  of  Pylos,  of  the  siege 
of  Platsea,  or  in  his  copy  of  a  now  extant  inscription. 

If  you  want  to  estimate  the  results  in  an  easy  and  obvious  way, 
compare  any  guide-book  to  Greece  of  ten  years  old  with  the  newest 
editions  of  the  same  work.  Nothing  now  gets  antiquated  so  quickly. 
But  if  you  want  larger  and  more  splendid  evidence  of  what  recent 
research  has  done  for  our  knowledge  of  Greece,  read  Mr.  Frazer's 
monumental  edition  of  Pausanias.  Twenty  years  ago,  nay,  even  ten 
years  ago,  such  a  work  would  have  been  impossible.  Nor  could  it  have 
been  done  at  any  other  time  ever  since  the  decadence  of  the  Roman 
Empire.  But  now  Mr.  Frazer  has  been  able  to  go  over  the  cities  and 
monuments  described  by  the  old  tourist  and  antiquary  of  the  second 
century,  and  gives  us,  in  most  cases,  if  not  in  all,  verifications  and 
illustrations  from  the  excavations  of  our  own  day. 

It  might  be  imagined  that  these  discoveries  affect  almost  exclu- 
sively our  knowledge  of  the  art  side  of  Greek  life.  That  is  not  so.  The 
many  recovered  inscriptions  tell  us  of  wars  and  of  treaties,  of  laws 
and  of  rites,  and  of  the  social  life  of  the  people  which  we  can  restore 
in  the  ruins  of  their  temples,  their  theatres,  and  their  homes.  And  let 
not  the  title  of  this  Department,  Political  and  Economic  History,  blind 
you  to  the  fact  that  without  the  social  life  and  the  art  of  a  people 
history  will  ever  be  dull  and  lifeless.  The  Hermes  of  Praxiteles,  the 
bronze  charioteer  of  Delphi,  the  great  tomb  of  Sidon  —  all  these  are 
as  important  in  understanding  Greek  history  as  are  the  constitution 
of  Athens  or  the  currency  of  Rhodes.  We  live,  therefore,  in  an  era 
of  expansion  even  of  the  golden  age  of  Greece,  an  expansion  in  depth, 
or  in  quality  of  knowledge,  even  more  than  in  the  multiplication  of 
facts,  such  as  Europe  has  not  seen  since  the  Renaissance,  and  such  as 
may  never  again  recur,  when  the  present  still  untouched  sites  have 
been  disclosed  and  the  testimony  of  statues  and  of  stelse  has  been 
exhausted.  But  of  this  limit  there  is  no  prospect  in  our  generation,  or 
perhaps  for  half  a  century  to  come. 

I  have  not  yet  said  one  word  concerning  our  gains  of  the  last 
decade  hi  the  matter  of  Greek  literature,  which  is,  after  all,  the 
department  of  human  culture  in  which,  most  of  all,  the  modern  world 
owes  great  and  everlasting  obligations  to  Hellas.  The  types  of  the 
epic,  of  the  lyric  poem,  of  the  drama,  of  the  prose  dialogue,  of  the 
oration,  have  been  fixed  by  the  Greeks  forever,  and  shown  to  us 
in  specimens  of  a  perfection  seldom  equaled,  never  excelled.  If 
I  have  set  down  our  gains  in  this  Hterature  last,  it  is  not  that  their 
importance  is  not  paramount,  but  because  the  manner  of  their 


THE   EXPANSION   OF   GREEK  HISTORY  63 

recovery  leads  us  to  the  third  part  of  my  discourse  —  the  extension 
of  Greek  history  into  later  times  and  other  societies  than  those  of  the 
golden  age;  for  the  consideration  of  our  gains  will  naturally  lead 
us  to  the  manner  and  method  by  which  these  gains  were  made.  And 
in  the  first  place,  what  have  we  acquired?  In  actual  texts  complete, 
or  partially  complete,  we  now  have  the  Mimes  of  Herondas,  dramatic 
sketches  of  low  or  vulgar  life,  such  as  the  Dutch  Teniers  has  given  us 
with  his  brush.  We  have  most  of  the  Constitution  of  Athens,  a  tract 
ascribed  to  Aristotle  and  often  quoted  as  such  by  Plutarch.  We  have 
some  of  the  Odes  of  Bacchylides,  the  lesser  contemporary  of  Pindar, 
and,  what  is  far  more  valuable,  among  them  specimens  of  the  dithy- 
ramb, a  form  of  poetry  much  cited  by  the  ancients,  but  never  under- 
stood till  this  discovery.  We  have  the  Persians  of  Timotheus,  another 
to  us  novel  form  of  poem  composed  for  an  elaborate  musical  illustra- 
tion, somewhat  like  the  Italian  opera,  and  rivaling  the  texts  of  that 
opera  in  its  tenth-rate  quality.  But  when  music  is  fitted  to  verse,  it  is 
but  seldom  the  setting  of  perfect  music  unto  noble  words,  of  which 
the  poet  dreams.  One  partner  becomes  predominant.  Let  us  hope 
for  the  sake  of  Timotheus,  for  the  sake  of  the  public  of  whom  he  was 
the  idol,  that  in  this  case,  as  in  that  of  Richard  Wagner,  the  music 
was  the  real  attraction.  But  I  must  refrain  from  criticism.  The  works 
just  named  are  all  incomplete  or  shattered  in  some  part,  for  the 
exterior  of  the  papyrus  rolls  on  which  they  were  written  could  hardly 
fail  to  have  been  affected  by  long  centuries  of  burial  or  by  the  hands 
of  ignorant  finders.  But  they  give  us  enough  to  judge  both  the  works 
and  their  authors.  Of  lesser  fragments,  stray  pages,  single  scenes  of 
plays,  or  even  of  music-hall  farces,  elegant  extracts,  epigrams,  we 
have  a  whole  library.  Almost  every  known  Greek  author,  and  a  great 
number  of  unknown,  are  represented  in  these  newly  acquired  texts. 
It  is  of  course  known  to  you  all  that  this  treasure  comes  from 
Egypt,  not  Greece,  and  was  preserved  by  the  Greek-speaking  popu- 
lation of  that  important  branch  of  Hellenism,  from  Ptolemaic  to  late 
Roman  days.  The  life  of  these  Greek  settlements  in  Egypt,  with  their 
language,  their  books,  their  traditions  all  from  Greece,  are  now  a 
vital  chapter  even  in  the  political  and  economic  history  of  the  nation. 
Among  the  literary  remains  are  innumerable  business  documents, 
official  orders,  every-day  correspondence,  copies  of  wills  and  of 
contracts  —  all  Hellenic  in  language  and  origin,  and  pointing  back 
to  the  classical  culture  of  the  mother  country.  Here  indeed  we  have 
a  perfectly  unexpected  and  notable  specimen  of  what  the  conquests 
of  Alexander  produced  in  foreign  lands  —  of  that  Hellenism  which  is 
at  last  commanding  the  attention  of  classical  scholars.  For  there 
is  every  reason  to  think  that  these  Greek  settlements,  in  the  midst  of 
a  native  population,  were  not  exceptional,  but  typical  of  what  Alex- 
ander projected  and  his  followers  effected  all  over  the  East.  Not  only 


64  HISTORY  OF   GREECE,   ROME,   AND   ASIA 

on  the  shores  of  the  Euxine,  where  there  were  long  since  Hellenic 
cities,  which  communicated  with  Greece  by  sea,  but  all  through  the 
body  of  Asia  Minor,  notabh'  in  Syria  and  Palestine,  in  Mesopotamia 
along  the  Tigris  and  Euphrates,  nay,  even  on  the  Oxus,  and  within 
range  of  the  Turanian  steppes,  there  were  established  settlements  of 
Greek  soldiers  and  traders,  with  privileges  to  attract  them  there,  but 
also  with  the  duty  of  guarding  the  new  Greek  civilization  of  the 
East  from  mountain  robbers  and  from  national  revolts.  I  know  not 
what  the  possibilities  are  of  successful  excavations  in  Syria  —  on  the 
site  of  Antioch  ruined  by  so  many  earthquakes,  of  Apamea,  of  Baalbec , 
of  Gerasa,  in  the  Decapolis  of  Judsea.  But  of  this  I  feel  sure,  in  that 
crowd  of  settlements  made  under  the  Seleucid  house,  both  of  Mace- 
donians and  of  Greeks,  the  evidences  we  should  find  would  be  of 
the  same  character  as  those  of  the  Fayum.  We  should  find  that  the 
Graeco-Macedonian  settlers,  including  the  Persians,  who  were  dis- 
tinctly admitted  to  the  ruling  caste,  lived  in  the  midst  of  the  ab- 
origines, trading  with  them,  intermarrying  with  them,  quarreling  with 
them,  while  they  were  protected  from  absorption  by  their  Hellenistic 
speech,  and  by  special  courts  conducted  according  to  Hellenistic  law. 
The  discoveries  of  the  last  fifteen  years,  inaugurated,  I  am  proud  to 
say,  by  the  two  volumes  of  Petrie  Papyri  which  it  was  my  unique 
good  fortune  to  lay  before  the  world,  have  manifested  to  us  an  aspect 
of  the  Hellenic  mind  of  which  we  knew  but  little  in  former  days.  True 
it  was  that  these  outlying  settlements,  living  as  the  Hungarians  do 
among  the  Slovaks,  or  the  Germans  among  the  Poles,  kept  up  their 
aristocracy  of  intellect,  as  well  as  of  race,  by  the  constant  reading  of 
the  old  Greek  masterpieces.  It  is  through  the  fragments  recovered 
from  them  that  we  now  know  what  the  texts  of  Homer,  and  Pindar, 
and  Euripides,  and  Plato,  and  Demosthenes  were  like  in  the  second  and 
third  centuries  before  Christ;  and  let  me  add  that  if  there  is  ample 
evidence  of  the  considerable  rehandling  and  reediting  of  the  Homeric 
text  in  the  second  century  b.  c.  which  tradition  long  since  ascribed  to 
the  great  Alexandrian  critics,  we  have  also  indisputable  proof  that 
in  the  rest  our  medieval  copies  represent  with  excellent  fidelity  the 
great  masters  as  they  were  read  in  these  early  books.  It  is  not,  how- 
ever, the  establishing  of  our  old  faith  in  the  great  classics  against  the 
suspicions  of  tampering  and  of  corruption  which  concerns  me  here. 
It  is  rather  the  new  and  interesting  fact  in  this  fresh  appendix  (if  I 
may  so  call  it)  to  our  Greek  histories,  that  of  these  people  we  have 
not  only  the  classical  books  they  read,  we  have  the  papers  of  every- 
day life.  We  now  know  how  they  made  their  marriage  settlements 
and  their  wills,  their  loans  and  their  contracts,  their  reports  and  their 
complaints;  we  have  now  an  insight  into  their  official  systems  of 
taxation  and  administration,  their  banking  and  their  general  finance. 
These  are  commonplace  matters.  These  letters  and  reports  cannot  be 


THE   EXPANSION   OF   GREEK  HISTORY  65 

called  literature.  But  they  are  history,  and  an  expansion  of  Greek 
history  of  the  highest  interest.  There  were  no  doubt  Egyptian  fea- 
tures, as  there  were  Persian  features  and  Syrian  features  elsewhere  in 
this  civilization,  but  the  whole  of  it  bears  the  impress  of  the  one  great 
nationality  which  stamped  it  upon  the  world.  It  has  been  well 
shown  by  more  than  one  modern  historian  ^  that  even  the  oriental 
reactions  against  the  West,  even  the  Indian  and  Parthian  monarchies 
that  repudiated  Hellenism,  owed  a  great  part  of  their  strength  to  the 
new  life  which  Alexander  brought  into  the  disorganized  systems  of 
the  East;  it  is  perhaps  more  remarkable  that  a  Prussian  government 
official,  examining  the  bureaus  and  the  red  tape  of  the  Greek  papyri, 
can  tell  us  that  all  the  official  life  of  our  own  day,  with  the  exception 
perhaps  of  the  transmission  of  checks  through  private  hands,  can  be 
found  among  the  Greeks  of  two  thousand  years  ago.^  It  is  an  inherit- 
ance from  them  through  the  Roman  Empire,  which  few  of  us  had 
suspected.  Not  till  we  unearthed  the  clay  figurines  from  Tanegra  did 
we  learn  how  the  ordinary  Greek  lady  dressed,  in  contrast  to  our 
knowledge  from  many  ideal  statues  by  great  artists  how  the  Greek 
goddess  —  undressed.  There  is  as  great  a  contrast  between  the 
stately  periods  of  the  studied  orator  and  the  curt  indorsements  of  the 
overworked  official.  I  heard  not  long  ago  a  great  English  banker,' with 
the  self-complacency  of  his  race,  attribute  the  invention  of  banking  to 
his  earliest  predecessors  in  London.  He  might  have  learned  from  the 
very  name  "  Lombard  Street "  that  he  was  wrong;  he  may  now  learn 
from  a  whole  literature  on  the  money  and  com  banks  of  Egypt,  that 
there  were  many  "  brave  men  before  Agamemnon."^ 

When  we  consider  the  effect  of  all  these  studies  and  discoveries 
upon  the  general  influence  which  Hellenic  civilization  has  had,  or  will 
have,  on  the  culture  of  the  twentieth  century,  we  must  be  prepared 
to  meet  the  objection  more  widely  felt  than  formulated,  that  all  this 
study  of  lesser  and  later  Greek  history  is  likely  to  dilute  the  strong 
impression  which  the  noblest  and  best  epoch  made  upon  our  fathers. 
There  was  then  a  strict  selection  of  what  was  pure;  all  that  was 
supposed  degenerate  and  second-rate  was  neglected,  and  this  is  why 
Greek  culture  has  maintained  its  supremacy  till  the  present  day. 
Why  study  Polybius  or  Diodorus  when  we  have  Thucydides  and 
Herodotus?  Why  study  Callimachus  when  we  have  Pindar?  Are  not 
a  few  acknowledged  masters  sufficient  to  maintain  the  Greek  in- 
fluence on  modem  culture?  These  objections  are  true,  indeed,  but 
only  true  from  a  special  standpoint.  For  the  education  of  the  young 
in  any  literature,  we  are  bound,  by  natural  selection,  to  choose  first 

'  Niese,  Gesch.  des  hellenist.  Zeitalters  ;  Bevan,  The  House  of  Seleucus. 
^  Preisigke,  "  Griech.  Pap.  Urkunden  u.  Bureaudienst  im  griech.  rom.  aegyp- 
ten,"  Archiv  fur  Post  u.  Telegraphie,  1904. 

*  Sir  John  Lubbock  (now  Lord  Avebury). 

*  Vixere  fortes  ante  Agamemnona.    Horace,  Od.  iv,  9,  25. 


66  HISTORY   OF   GREECE,   ROME,   AND   ASIA 

the  great  masterpieces.  That  is  a  universal  rule  in  this  our  mortal 
life,  where  our  powers  of  comprehension  are  very  limited.  If  we 
carry  it  to  its  extreme  limit  we  arrive  at  the  word  of  Scripture,  or  of 
the  Koran:  "  Seek  first  the  kingdom  of  Heaven,  and  its  righteousness, 
and  all  other  things  shall  be  added  unto  you."  But  if  our  education 
is  to  comprehend  not  merely  the  perfect  form  of  Greek  literature, 
but  the  reahties  of  Greek  hfe;  if  the  complete  history  of  that  people, 
whose  world-influence  waxed  rapidly  according  as  the  perfection  of 
its  artistic  hfe  began  to  wane,  be  our  object,  then  the  view  of  the 
schoolmaster  and  the  grammarian  must  make  way  for  larger  con- 
siderations. Nay,  more,  this  narrow  view  has  misled  the  world  upon 
the  very  issues  raised  by  the  pedants.  What  is  decadence,  and  what 
is  inferiority?  We  will  all  concede  that  there  is  an  inimitable  grace 
in  the  dialogue  of  Aristophanes,  which  even  Menander  could  not 
equal,  but  are  there  not  other  perfections  in  Greek  life?  The  two 
masterpieces,  for  example,  that  stand  out  in  the  Greek  sculpture  of  the 
Louvre  in  Paris  are  the  great  Nike  of  Samothrace,  and  the  exquisite 
Venus  of  Melos.  They  both  come  from  the  post-classical  age.  The 
marble  sarcophagus  from  Sidon,  which  commemorates  some  com- 
panion of  Alexander  (probably  that  Philokles  who  was  Sidonian 
King,  and  High  Admiral  to  the  first  Ptolemy),  is  the  most  splendid 
and  perfect  specimen  of  that  kind  of  art  we  have  yet  recovered. 
That,  too,  is  post-classical.  The  purist  schools  had  banished  from  their 
course,  as  a  writer  of  decadent  Greek,  the  immortal  Plutarch,  whom 
even  Shakespeare  thought  worthy  of  translation  to  his  stage,  with 
hardly  a  word  of  alteration.  And  when  these  people  conceded  to  us 
Theocritus,  the  great  father  of  the  pastoral  idyl,  as  a  master,  probably 
because  of  his  difficult  Doric  dialect  rather  than  his  novel  subject, 
why  did  they  conceal  from  us  the  exquisite  Eubceic  adventure  (his 
seventh  discourse)  of  Dion  Chrysostom,  or  the  late  born,  but  not  the 
less  precious,  Daphnis  and  Chloe,  whose  very  author  is  a  mystery?  ^ 
It  is  through  widely  different  circumstances  that  the  narratives  of 
the  Synoptic  Gospels,  documents  of  the  highest  moral  quality,  have 
maintained  their  fame,  yet  let  none  of  you  imagine  that  their  literary 
excellence  did  not  contribute  largely  to  this  permanent  influence. 

But  I  need  not  rest  my  argument  for  the  expansion  of  our  study 
of  Hellenic  into  Hellenistic  times  on  these  literary  grounds,  nor  is  it 
a  mere  protest  against  ignoring  great  works  of  literature  and  of  art 
under  the  bonds  of  a  narrow  and  false  theory.  The  political  lessons 
of  this  later  age  of  Greece  have  only  recently  risen  into  the  apprecia- 
tion of  men.  When  Grote  comes  to  record  complimentary  votes 
passed  at  Athens  to  a  Macedonian  ruler  or  his  officer,  he  thinks  it 
high  time  for  the  historian  of  Greece  to  lay  down  his  pen  in  disgust, 

*  These  matters  are  set  forth  in  my  Silver  Age  of  Greece,  in  which  I  have  sought 
to  rescue  from  oblivion  these  forgotten  masterpieces. 


THE  EXPANSION   OF   GREEK  HISTORY  67 

and  bring  his  labors  to  a  close.  And  yet  since  then  Freeman  has 
given  us  an  admirable  and  instructive  volume  on  Greek  Federations; 
the  fourth  volume  of  Hohn's  History,  and  the  monumental  work  of 
Droysen  are  on  the  same  epoch.  It  is  not  in  a  mere  address,  but  by  the 
studies  of  many  years,  that  I  have  shown  my  own  personal  interest 
in  this  once  neglected  period.  Freeman,  utilizing  his  Polybius  as 
no  one  had  done  before,  was  the  first  to  show  how  the  idea  of  federa- 
tion, long  obscure  and  almost  dormant  in  the  Greek  mind,  came 
into  vogue  when  the  little  city  states  of  Greece  found  great  kingdoms 
rising  up  around  them.  To  remain  isolated  after  the  old  Greek 
fashion  meant  ruin;  some  form  of  combination,  some  accumulated 
strength,  was  necessary  to  preserve  not  only  the  political  but  the 
economic  existence  of  small  states.  This  fruitful  idea,  first  carried 
out  on  a  considerable  scale  by  the  leagues  of  ^tolia  and  Achaa,  then 
with  great  effect  by  Rhodes,  failed  on  the  whole,  and  failed  on  account 
of  the  ingrained  conviction  of  the  Greeks  that  every  state  which 
voluntarily  entered  a  confederation  was  entitled  to  secede  from 
it  at  any  subsequent  moment.  If  it  could  not  be  brought  back  by 
argument,  had  the  rest  any  right  to  bring  it  back  by  force?  Need 
I  say  one  word  more  in  this  place  to  enforce  the  world-importance 
of  this  problem?  Seeing  that  the  Greek  sentiment,  as  might  be 
expected  from  small  separate  cities,  with  long  traditions  of  inde- 
pendence, and  perpetual  jealousies  of  their  neighbors,  was  always 
in  favor  of  secession,  there  remained  no  other  alternative  than  to 
combine  under  a  foreign  monarchy.  For  this,  while  it  granted  local 
liberties,  from  indifference  or  from  policy,  defended  its  subject  states 
by  a  superior  military  force,  and  prohibited  those  local  wars,  which 
were  the  bane  of  the  Greek  world. 

If  the  history  of  the  rise  of  federations  has  at  last  received  due 
attention,  that  is  not  the  case  with  the  resurgence  of  the  idea  of 
monarchy,  not  merely  enforced  upon  the  Greeks  by  their  Macedonian 
conqueror,  but  defended  in  many  books  and  tracts  from  Xenophon's 
Cijrus  down  to  the  tracts  of  philosophers  about  royalty  (■^^pi-  ^ao-tXcms) 
of  which  many  fragments  and  notices  remain.  This  once  hateful 
form  of  government  was  not  therefore  thrust  upon  a  democratic 
world  against  its  will,  but  recognized  on  trial  to  be  the  practical 
solution  of  difficulties  which  were  bringing  political  ruin  upon  the 
Greek  world.  How  far  this  great  change  of  ideas  prevailed  appears 
from  the  readiness  with  which  even  skeptical  democracies  lavished  not 
only  royal  titles  but  divine  honors  upon  the  new  king.  Never  was 
the  Divine  right  of  hereditary  monarchy  so  quickly  and  readily 
adopted.  It  was,  in  fact,  far  safer  to  have  a  distant  king,  who  theoret- 
ically could  do  no  wrong,  than  a  present  tyranny  of  pauper  fellow 
citizens,  with  irresponsible  power  to  do  practical  mischief  at  every 
assembly  they  chose  to  hold.     It  was  far  better  for  the  herald's 


68  HISTORY  OF   GREECE,   ROME,   AND   ASIA 

office  to  invent  a  divine  pedigree  for  an  adventurer,  than  to  have  the 
Divine  right  of  kings  questioned  and  the  novel  virtue  of  loyalty  to 
the  reigning  house  chilled  by  skepticism.  For  thus  only  could  even 
temporary  peace,  even  local  liberties,  be  maintained  in  that  seething 
and  tumultuous  age.  A  new  Cadmus  had  sown  the  dragon's  teeth, 
and  the  Greek  world  was  red  with  the  warring  harvest.  The  anodyne 
which  that  world  adopted  gave  the  framework  of  the  ideas  to 
Augustus  Csesar  on  which  he  built  up  the  Roman  Empire,  and 
established  the  Roman  Peace. 

Here  I  pause,  out  of  breath  with  the  effort  to  compass  so  vast  a 
subject,  to  cover  so  long  a  course. 

In  conclusion :  There  are  three  great  requisites  for  the  further  de- 
velopment of  this  branch  of  human  learning.  First,  the  diligent 
prosecution  of  the  ordering  and  criticising  existing  materials  by  a 
number  of  specialists,  each  to  his  own  department.  Of  this  first  we 
may  feel  quite  assured.  For  our  age  is  indeed  a  diligent  age,  and 
has  learned  how  to  collate  and  to  edit.  Secondly,  more  ample  en- 
dowment for  making  special  and  costly  researches  on  famous  historic 
sites.  What  new  material  might  not  accrue  to  us  if  we  had  leave 
and  means  to  explore  Sybaris  and  Cyrene,  Antioch  and  Alexandria? 
And  here  too  we  may  have  good  hopes,  for  our  age  is  indeed  a  gen- 
erous age,  and  the  princely  donors  of  thousands  for  modern  science 
may  yet  be  persuaded  that  with  hundreds  devoted  to  historic  re- 
search, they  will  add  not  less  to  human  knowledge,  and  ten  times 
more  to  the  gratitude  of  men.^  For  human  culture  must  have  many 
sides,  and  it  will  be  an  evil  day  when  the  knowledge  of  positive  sci- 
ence leaves  no  place  for  the  knowledge  of  human  society.  But  let 
no  man  persuade  you  that  ardent  diligence  and  ample  endowment 
are  enough  without  the  last  and  greatest  postulate  which  I  shall  make, 
—  the  encouragement  of  a  bold,  constructive  imagination,  which 
carries  on  its  inquiries  not  at  haphazard,  but  in  order  to  verify  or  to 
refute  some  large  theory  of  what  things  ought  to  have  been,  or  what 
men  ought  to  have  done.  It  is  this  quahty  which  makes  the  dif- 
ference between  the  mere  scientific  drudge  and  the  great  scientific 
thinker;  it  marks  the  greatness  of  a  Champollion  and  a  Hincks, 
no  less  than  of  a  Newton  and  a  Laplace.  And  if  it  cannot  be  the 
inheritance  of  every  student,  being  indeed  the  exceptional  and  pre- 
cious gift  of  the  gods,  remember  that  it  cannot  only  be  encouraged 
and  nurtured,  but  discouraged  and  starved  by  the  education  of  men. 
Through  it,  and  through  it  alone,  can  you  understand  the  real  meaning 
of  the  pregnant  apothegm:  Prudens  interrogatio  dimidium  scientiae. 

'  If,  for  example,  the  classical  public,  who  are  not  millionaires,  would  support 
the  Graeco-Roman  branch  of  the  Egypt  Exploration  Fimd  with  numerous  sub- 
scriptions, the  momentous  and  epoch-making  work  of  Messrs.  Grenfell  and  Hunt 
might  assume  larger  proportions,  and  many  texts  would  be  saved  by  them  from 
the  lamentable  fate  of  being  dug  out  and  lacerated  by  ignorant  natives,  and  sold 
m  scraps  to  equally  ignorant  travelers. 


PROBLEMS  IN  ROMAN   HISTORY 

BY    ETTORE    PAIS 

[Ettore  Pais,  Professor  of  Ancient  History,  University  of  Naples,  Italy,  b.  Borgo 
S.  Dalmazzo,  Piedn^ont,  Italy,  July  27,  1856.  Ph.D.  Florence,  1878  ;  Post- 
graduate, Berlin,  1881-83 ;  LL.D.  Chicago ;  Chevaher,  Legion  d'Honneur  de 
France;  Commander  of  the  Prussian  Crown;  Director  of  Royal  Museum, 
Sassari,  1879-81;  CagUari,  1883-86;  Naples,  1901-04;  Professor  of  Ancient 
History,  University  of  Palermo,  1886-88;  Pisa,  1888-99;  Naples,  1900;  Madi- 
son, Wis.,  1905.  Member  Academy  of  Lincei,  Rome;  Academy  of  Sciences, 
Mxmich;  Imperial  German  Archaeology  Institute,  Berlin;  Society  d'histoire 
diplomatique,  Paris ;  Royal  Historical  Society,  Piedmont;  ibid.  Romagna;  ibid. 
Marche  Venice,  etc.  Author  of  History  of  Sicily  and  Great  Greece ;  History  of 
Sardinia;  History  of  Rome;  and  other  noted  works  in  history.] 

Any  one  who  will  follow  the  development  of  the  ancient  political 
history  of  Greece  and  Rome,  and  closely  observe  what  were  our  con- 
ditions from  the  Renaissance  to  the  close  of  the  eighteenth  century, 
will  easily  recognize  that  the  nineteenth  century,  so  glorious  in  the 
renewing  of  philosophical,  natural,  and  social  studies,  has  not  been 
less  great  in  this  conspicuous  branch  of  human  knowledge.  Thanks 
to  the  methodic  study  of  the  literary  texts,  of  the  genesis  of  sources, 
and  to  the  laborious  collection  of  infinite  series  of  monuments; 
thanks  to  the  works  of  Boechk,  Grote,  Niebuhr,  Droysen,  Momm- 
sen,  and  of  the  great  number  of  their  followers,  the  political  knowledge 
of  the  ancient  classical  world  has  advanced  so  far  as  to  give  us  an 
almost  complete  view  of  that  civilization.  We  have  precise  narratives, 
which  ought  to  be  of  the  greatest  utility,  not  only  to  the  professional 
scholar  but  also  to  any  cultured  man.  And  close  to  these  narratives, 
inspired,  as  in  the  case  of  Mommsen,  even  by  the  cult  of  form,  we 
have  a  long  succession  of  deep  works  on  all  the  branches  pertaining 
to  kindred  sciences;  from  chronology  to  numismatics,  from  public 
law  to  the  history  of  art  and  of  philosophical  opinions.  Any  one,  in 
fact,  who  with  optimistic  views  will  examine  the  enormous  scientific 
publications  made  in  Germany,  France,  England,  and  America,  may 
almost  be  drawn  to  conclude,  at  first  impression,  that  little  is  left  to 
be  done,  and  that  man's  mind,  always  seeking  new  problems,  may 
find  little  to  reap  in  a  field  so  completely  cleared.  This  impression 
is  perhaps  less  strongly  received  from  the  study  of  Greek  political 
history  than  from  the  study  of  the  Roman,  where  the  wonderful 
energy  of  a  single  man  appears  to  have  left  almost  nothing  for  his 
fellow  workers  and  future  generations  to  gather.  You  will  under- 
stand my  allusion  to  Theodor  Mommsen,  the  man  who  for  half  a 
century  has  held  undisputed  the  sceptre  among  all  cultivators  of 
history  and  classical  law,  the  man  who  has  not  passed  over  in  silence 
any  of  the  arguments  regarding  the  life  of  the  Roman  people. 


70  HISTORY  OF   GREECE,   ROME,   AND  ASIA 

Mommsen,  in  fact,  after  having  silenced  the  voices  of  his  oppon- 
ents, has  seen  his  triumphal  chariot  followed  by  the  best  energies 
of  two  generations  of  learned  men.  But  it  looks  as  if  it  were  an 
inevitable  historical  necessity  that  to  the  works  of  learned  men 
should  be  reserved  a  fate  quite  different  from  that  which  is  decreed 
to  the  works  of  artists.  The  greatest  perfection  reached  by  a  poet  or 
a  painter  has  not  as  its  immediate  effect  the  disdaining  of  his  pre- 
decessors' work.  Human  curiosity  is,  in  this  case,  rather  urged  to 
examine  and  to  appreciate  the  less  mature  and  perfect  work  which 
marks  a  salient  point  in  the  artistic  development.  On  the  contrary, 
it  is  quite  rare  not  to  see  those  same  laurels  gathered  by  the  greatest 
scientists,  rapidly  fade  and  drop.  And  the  history  of  science,  keeping 
firmly  to  the  vital  ideas  and  criteria  which  make  the  works  of  the 
most  eminent  authors  of  the  greatest  importance,  gives  only  a  flying 
glance  to  the  older  works,  which  have  spread  in  their  times  the  ideas 
which  had  to  produce  the  new  germs. 

The  direct  efficacy  of  August  Boechk  has  been  now  transmitted 
in  a  great  measure  to  other  writers,  and  though  the  impression  left 
by  Mommsen,  who,  following  close  upon  Boechk,  filled  with  him  all 
the  nineteenth  century,  is  still  lasting,  it  is  clear  that  also  through 
the  ideas  and  infinite  researches  which  emanated  from  his  great 
mind,  we  are  on  the  eve  of  a  new  and  great  intellectual  movement, 
a  movement  which  is  alimented  and  increased  by  the  new  material 
which  is  being  discovered  in  every  part  of  the  ancient  classical  world. 

In  these  last  years  we  are  coming  into  possession  of  new  Greek 
histories,  which  are  destined  to  make  the  world  forget  the  ones 
written  by  Grote  and  Curtius;  and  new  ideas  and  problems  are 
already  fermenting  in  the  human  brain,  which  will  necessarily  lead 
to  new  histories  of  the  Republic  and  of  the  Roman  Empire,  quite 
different  from  those  of  Mommsen  and  Gibbon. 

The  opinion  generally  accepted  that  the  material  of  the  classical 
world  is  now  altogether  determined  and  closed,  and  that  the  study 
of  historians  should  be  limited  to  penetrating  literary  examination, 
discussed  word  by  word,  and  to  the  observing  of  the  old  materials 
under  new  points  of  view,  has  been  altogether  destroyed  by  the 
fortunate  discovery  of  papyri  which,  thanks,  especially,  to  English 
diligence  and  learning,  are  coming  to  us  from  the  very  bowels  of 
ancient  Egypt.  And  to  the  papyri  which  illustrate  every  part  of 
the  public  and  private  life  of  the  ancient  world  are  added  the  results 
given  by  the  excavations  which  illustrate  both  the  mature  ages  and 
the  first  origins  of  civilization  among  the  classic  peoples. 

One  of  the  most  sahent  characteristics  of  the  nineteenth  century 
has  been,  in  fact,  the  patient  research  of  the  embryonic  forms  of  all 
cosmic  life.  It  was  quite  natural  that  from  this  universal  tendency 
the  study  of  classic  history  should  not  have  been  exempt;   a  study 


PROBLEMS   IN  ROMAN  HISTORY  71 

which,  also  for  the  past,  had  been  constantly  determined  in  its 
genesis  and  in  its  ulterior  development  by  the  prevailing  currents 
in  all  the  remaining  sciences,  and  by  the  changing  of  political  and 
philosophical  ideas.  The  study  of  classical  antiquity  from  the  end 
of  the  sixteenth  century  through  the  eighteenth,  especially  in  Pro- 
testant countries,  has  been  the  substratum  of  political  and  civil 
education.  When  the  triumph  of  liberal  ideas  was  obtained  in 
Europe,  the  science  of  antiquity  did  not  become  the  object  of  mere 
erudite  curiosity,  but  was  taken  as  the  foundation  and  the  ideal  of 
literary  and  moral  education.  And  it  is  in  this  blind  and  exclusive 
admiration  of  the  life  of  the  Greeks  and  Romans  that  one  must  trace 
the  reason  why  their  civilization  was  considered  quite  different  from 
the  Eastern,  while  the  Greek  one  was  supposed  autochthonous,  sprung 
by  its  own  virtue,  like  Athena  completely  armed  from  the  head  of 
Jove.  Thus  the  declarations  of  the  ancients  were  considered  erroneous ; 
though,  far  from  feeling  any  shame  of  this  contact  with  the  oriental 
world,  they  insisted  particularly  on  it.  And  the  same  insistence  and 
warmth,  which  would  be  urged  to  prove  the  constant  purity  of 
blood  in  the  lineage  of  an  aristocratic  family,  was  used  in  attribut- 
ing a  purely  Hellenic  origin  to  the  myth  of  Herakles,  and  to  deny  the 
Phoenician  descendance  of  Thales.  The  merit  of  having  overthrown 
the  theories  which  have  had  for  so  many  years  the  preponderance 
in  the  field  of  European  science  is  undoubtedly  due  to  the  various 
scientific  European  and  American  missions,  and  to  many  learned 
Englishmen.  And  without  letting  ourselves  be  blinded  by  the  exag- 
gerations to  which  every  reaction  leads,  we  must  follow  with  great 
love  the  discoveries  made  in  Egypt,  Crete,  Greece,  and  Sicily,  reveal- 
ing the  existence  of  civilization  of  the  Mykensean  type,  which  de- 
monstrates to  us,  with  increasing  strength,  the  truth  of  the  aphorism 
that  in  the  world  nothing  is  isolated,  but  everything  is  in  relationship 
with  preceding  or  with  parallel  phenomena.  Scientists  are  to-day 
better  disposed  to  listen  to  the  demonstrations  of  Ginzel  on  the  astro- 
nomical discoveries  of  the  people  of  Babylon,  and  on  their  efficacy 
over  the  posterior  doctrines  of  Hipparchus  and  Ptolomaeus,  just  as 
they  have  no  more  difficulty  in  recognizing  the  possibility  of  ancient 
political  relations  between  Greece,  Asia  Minor,  and  Egypt.  And  it 
is  to  be  hoped  that  new  discoveries  may  not  only  benefit  the  develop- 
ment of  material  civilization,  but  may  one  day  be  of  great  advantage 
in  illustrating  the  genesis  of  the  Greek  conscience,  which  is  still  sub- 
stantially dominating  the  modern  world. 

The  great  and  luminous  discoveries  which  to-day  have  thrown 
light  upon  the  relations  between  Egypt,  Asia  Minor,  and  the  coun- 
tries inhabited  by  the  Hellenes,  were  to  have  a  necessary  rebounding 
action  in  the  researches  regarding  the  origins  of  civilization  and 
Italian  history. 


72  HISTORY  OF   GREECE,   ROME,  AND   ASIA 

The  most  recent  scientific  criticism  had  refused  the  mystic  nar- 
rative of  the  Pelasgians.  It  is  then  clearly  understood  how  some 
scholars  came  to  defend  such  traditions.  However,  it  must  be  added 
at  once  that  to  this  day  these  attempts  have  not  been  very  fortunate. 
The  excavations  at  Norba  in  the  territory  of  the  Volscians,  with 
the  hope  on  the  part  of  some  to  attribute  to  the  Pelasgians  the  ancient 
Italic  walls,  have  only  served  to  sustain  the  position  of  those  critics 
who  assigned  those  same  walls  to  a  much  more  recent  age.  And  the 
same  results  have  been  obtained  from  the  explorations  in  Etruscan 
Volterra.  The  discoveries  of  material  of  the  Mykensean  type  in  Sicily 
and  also  at  Tarentum  are  in  relation  with  the  commercial  diffusion 
of  products,  which,  in  the  third  Mediterranean  basin,  reached  the 
first  dawn  of  Greek  colonization,  that  is  the  beginning  of  the  eighth 
century.  Likewise  all  attempts  to  set  back,  by  many  centuries  before 
the  eighth,  the  most  ancient  historical  forms  of  Italy  have  completely 
failed. 

No  wise  critic  can  seriously  consider  the  attempt  made  by  a  learned 
Swede  to  establish  a  chronology  which  goes  back  two  thousand  years 
before  Christ,  by  means  of  various  types  of  bronzes  and  vases,  which 
lasted  in  an  irregular  manner  according  to  the  various  countries, 
more  or  less  accessible  to  new  commercial  influences,  more  or  less 
slow  on  their  way  to  civilization.  A  few  years  ago  people  took  into 
consideration  such  theories  which,  basing  themselves  on  the  study  of 
^milian  palisades,  caused  the  Italic  founders  of  Rome  to  come 
from  the  north  of  Italy.  The  recent  discoveries  in  Greece,  in  the 
^Egean  islands  on  the  coast  of  southern  Italy,  are  instead  tending  to 
prove  that  such  archaeological  discoveries  can  contribute  to  establish 
the  history  of  the  commercial  relations,  but  that  they  have  nothing 
to  do  with  the  ethnography  of  the  most  ancient  Italic  races.  I  do  not 
stop  to  examine  theories  already  accepted  as  certain, — of  palisades 
pitched  even  on  dry  land  for  mere  reason  of  rite,  and  of  Ligurians 
recognized  in  various  parts  of  Italy  merely  from  the  crouching  posi- 
tion of  the  corpses,  etc.  Common  sense  knows  what  value  to  put  on 
such  aberrations.  Archseological  excavations  tend  rather  to  prove 
that  the  Italian  civilization,  bom  on  the  coast  of  southern  Italy, 
gradually  spread  as  far  as  the  plains  of  northern  Italy  and  quite 
to  the  base  of  the  Alps,  where  the  less  frequent  contact  with  the 
East,  the  continuous  emigration  and  impositions  of  barbarous 
elements  coming  from  the  north,  were  maintaining  stationary  forms 
of  civilization,  which  had  already  disappeared  from  the  south. 

Among  all  the  excavations  of  Italy,  those  which  have  been  so 
zealously  carried  out  in  the  Roman  Forum  by  Giacomo  Boni  are  to 
be  especially  mentioned.  These  excavations  have  been,  for  some,  the 
revealing  elements^ of  a  civilization  anterior  to  Romulus  himself. 
But  they  proved,  after  all,  nothing  of  the  kind.    We  are  lacking  all 


PROBLEMS   IN   ROMAN  'HISTORY  73 

data  to  establish  whether  those  bronzes  and  vases  should  be  of  the 
tenth  and  ninth,  rather  than  the  eighth,  seventh,  or  even  sixth 
century,  b.  c.  Other  excavations  would  seem  to  prove  that  the 
typical  forms  of  the  so-called  Numa  vases  lasted  till  the  Empire.  The 
only  result  altogether  certain  is  the  first  confirmation  of  the  ancient 
texts,  which  said  that  at  the  outskirts  of  the  Forum  there  was  a 
Sepulcretum.  And  from  this,  even  before  the  excavations,  I  had 
obtained  the  proof,  solemnly  confirmed  to-day,  that  the  Forum  was 
added  to  the  city  long  after  the  age  of  the  seven  kings. 

I  do  not  think  it  is  now  the  moment  to  speak  of  the  famous  Archaic 
Latin  inscription  found  under  the  Niger  Lapis.  All  the  attempts 
which  have  been  made  to  interpret  it  have  been  fruitless.  Considered 
from  the  palseographical  side  it  may  belong  either  to  the  sixth  or  fifth 
century,  or  even  fourth  century,  while  from  the  external  form  and 
for  the  disposition  of  the  writing  it  recalls  the  Capuan  monuments 
of  the  end  of  the  second  or  more  probably  at  the  beginning  of  the 
first  century,  b.  c.  No  reasoning  of  any  critic  can  possibly  demon- 
strate that  the  rex  remembered  there  is  the  political  rex  of  the  royal 
age  rather  than  the  rex  sacrorum  of  the  Republic.  As  regards  his- 
tory, properly  said,  the  inscription  teaches  us  nothing.  The  excava- 
tions of  the  Forum  have,  however,  demonstrated  what  I  had  already 
affirmed,  namely,  that  the  arched  cloaca  maxima  is  not  a  work 
belonging  to  the  royal  age,  but  rather  to  the  Republic. 

In  order  to  solve  the  most  ancient  problems  of  the  history  of 
Italian  civilization,  some  people  have  turned  to  the  investigation 
of  linguistics  and  anthropology  rather  than  of  archaeology.  It  has 
been  easy  for  an  able  German  linguist  to  criticise  the  weak  point  of 
the  theories  founded  on  craniological  and  somatological  elements. 
However,  it  has  been  easy  to  a  great  Italian  linguist  to  find  traces  of 
ancient  ethnology  in  the  phonetic  persistences  among  the  dwellers 
of  various  Italian  regions;  and  the  anatomic  examination  in  the 
structure  of  the  different  races  in  the  Peninsula  will  certainly  lead 
one  day  to  brilliant  results.  The  persistency  of  the  Celtic  reveals 
the  expansion  of  this  people;  and  among  the  mountains  of  the 
Garfagnana  the  Ligurian  race,  which  befqre  the  Etruscan  dominion 
occupied  such  large  part  of  the  Italian,  Gallic,  and  Iberian  regions, 
still  holds  compact  in  its  somatological  integrity.  Thus,  on  the  slopes 
of  the  Apennines,  surrounding  Campania,  just  where  the  Sarno  takes 
its  start,  one  finds  in  the  same  compact  condition  an  indigenous  race 
unmodified  by  the  successive  superimpositions  of  the  Samnites  and 
Romans.  And  I  willingly  agree  with  Professor  Julian  when  he  says 
that  a  corpus  of  the  toponomastic  of  the  ancient  world  would  lead  to 
most  brilliant  results. 

Naturally  these  studies  are  not  yet  perfect,  and  hurried  conclusions 
may  lead  to  bitter  delusions.    Certainly  a  great  delusion  must  have 


74  HISTORY  OF  GREECE,   ROME,   AND  ASIA 

been  felt  by  certain  learned  men  who,  after  having  spoken  with  all 
certainty  of  the  immigration  of  people  coming  from  Asia,  basing  their 
affirmations  on  the  presence  of  jade-axes,  were  suddenly  informed 
by  a  mineralogist  that  the  same  rock  was  to  be  found  in  the  Alps. 
Bitter  delusions  will  come  to  those  whom  the  Etruscan  sphinx  devours 
daily;  and  my  opinion  is  that  people  insisted  with  too  great  facility 
on  the  non- Aryan  character  of  the  Ligurians,  since  I  have  already 
brought  to  observation  that  the  etymology  of  the  indigenous  name 
Genoa  (knee) ,  as  Ancona  (the  arm) ,  Eryx-Verrucca  (the  hill) ,  shows 
the  premature  character  of  these  conclusions. 

These  delusions  must  not,  however,  prove  discouraging,  since  there 
is  no  science  which  has  not  improved  through  infinite  uncertainties 
and  errors.  We  must,  however,  admit  that  regarding  the  problem 
pi  Italic  origin  which  has  attracted  and  still  attracts  such  a  great 
number  of  studious  people,  we  have  not  yet  reached  any  series  of 
sure  and  complex  results,  partly  from  lack  of  data,  and  partly  from 
faulty  methods. 

Many  people  who  busy  themselves  with  the  primitive  strata 
which  precede  the  true  and  real  political  life  ignore  classical  culture, 
which  is  a  fundamental  guide,  and  those  who  represent  it  are  not 
always  in  a  condition  to  appreciate  the  anthropological  and  social 
problems. 

Regarding  the  archaeological  part,  researches  have  not  been 
directed  to  just  aims.  The  great  majority  of  learned  Europeans  and 
Americans,  always  running  after  new  and  more  ancient  material,  turn 
to  the  excavating  of  Samos,  Miletus,  Crete,  and  Lycia,  whilst  Italy 
is  still  quite  far  from  being  all  explored.  And  yet  on  the  very 
boundaries  of  Latium  and  Campania,  where  the  ancients  placed  the 
mythical  seat  of  Circe,  and  the  tombstone  of  Elpenor,  notable  ruins 
exist  neglected  even  from  the  times  of  Polybius.  There,  just  as  on 
the  little  hill  standing  above  the  ruins  of  the  Roman  Minturnse,  are 
preserved  the  traces  of  what  is,  perhaps,  the  most  ancient  stratum 
of  Greek  colonization  in  Italy. 

The  problems  relating  to  the  most  ancient  Greek  and  Italic  civiliza- 
tion are  waiting  for  light  from  the  spade  of  the  excavator;  on  the 
other  hand,  those  regarding  the  most  ancient  social  and  political 
structure  wait  their  light  from  the  comparative  study  of  public  law 
and  economy.  But  even  in  this  respect  what  a  difference  there  is 
between  the  history  of  ancient  Greece  and  that  of  ancient  Rome! 
The  marbles  of  the  ancient  Acropolis  permitted  Boechk  and  his  fol- 
lowers to  reconstruct  the  financial  history  and  the  maritime  hegem- 
ony of  Athens,  the  texts  of  the  comedians  and  of  the  orators  have 
permitted  Belock,  Poehlnian,  Francotte,  and  others  to  treat  the  most 
difficult  questions  relating  to  financial  and  social  organizations.  Paul 
Girard  has  succeeded  in  writing  a  good  book  on  the  ancient  land 


PROBLEMS   IN  ROMAN  HISTORY  75 

property  in  Greece.  The  material  lately  illustrated  by  Wilken  proves 
that  new  researches  may  still  be  made.  In  the  Roman  field,  instead, 
there  is  nothing  that  can  be  in  any  way  compared  to  this.  No  history 
whatever  on  land  property  during  the  Republic  is  to  be  had,  and  if 
we  want  to  be  sincere,  we  must  admit  we  do  not  possess  even  a  good 
guide  for  the  more  ancient  social  and  political  institutions.  We  have, 
it  is  true,  ancient  and  diffused  narratives  on  political  struggles,  which 
are  the  foundation  of  a  long  series  of  modern  manuals  on  law  and 
history.  But  such  narratives  are  based  on  spurious  material,  and  even 
the  treatises  on  Roman  political  law  written  by  Mommsen  (for  the 
period  from  the  age  of  the  kings  to  the  beginning  of  the  Punic  wars) 
is  based  upon  falsified  material.  I  do  not  insist  on  this  point,  as  I 
would  find  myself  obliged  to  repeat  demonstrations  already  given  by 
me  elsewhere.  I  hope  at  any  rate  to  be  able  soon  to  publish  my 
researches  on  the  value  of  chronology,  on  the  Fasti  and  on  the  public 
law  of  the  most  ancient  Roman  people,  in  the  only  way  in  which  it 
can  be  really  obtained,  namely,  through  integrations  and  comparisons. 
I  say  integrations  and  comparisons,  since  the  study  of  public  law  and 
of  the  social  conditions  of  a  nation  cannot  be  made  now,  as  in  the 
past,  through  the  simple  knowledge  of  the  material  relating  to  that 
single  people,  no  matter  how  minute  and  deep.  If  there  is  a  matter 
which  should  be  deeply  known  by  the  student  of  ancient  civilization, 
it  is  the  comparative  history  of  the  law  of  all  peoples  beginning  from 
the  customs  in  the  savage  state,  to  the  true  and  proper  law  of  most 
civilized  people.  Under  this  aspect  Sumner  Maine's  researches, 
though  incomplete,  have  brought  a  greater  advantage  to  studies, 
than  the  pretentious  works  of  many  scholars  of  Roman  Law.  And 
only  by  such  comparison,  to  which  must  be  added  a  good  knowledge 
of  the  classical  material,  shall  we,  some  day,  be  the  possessors  of  a 
treatise  on  Greek  public  law,  which  is  generally  desired.  And  the 
study  of  law  and  comparative  sociology  will  evidently  give  us  the 
history  of  the  ethic  development  of  the  classical  world,  which  we  lack, 
and  which  is  the  surest  foundation  in  order  to  understand  the  reasons 
of  political  events. 

Fortunately  for  those  who  will  apply  themselves  to  the  history 
of  law  and  of  Greek  and  Roman  social  institutions,  the  Egyptian 
papyri  and  the  discovery  of  new  inscriptions,  which  explain  intimate 
connections  between  the  two  great  phases  of  ancient  civilization,  will 
bring  new  and  wished-for  materials.  Every  one  knows  that  an 
institution  like  that  of  aurum  coronarium,  of  the  colonat,  and  of  the 
frumentationes,  finds  its  precedents  in  the  history  of  Samos,  Miletus, 
and  Alexandria;  and  the  original  studies  of  Mitteis  have  shown  what 
quantity  of  material  for  deep  researches  there  is  in  the  comparison  of 
Roman  with  Hellenic  laws. 

It  looks  as  if  the  discovery  of  the  papyri  were  destined  to  give 


76  HISTORY  OF   GREECE,   ROME,   AND   ASIA 

results  in  the  Roman  and  Greek  fields.  But  if  the  philologists  have 
rejoiced  in  the  discovery  of  the  texts  of  Aristotle,  Bachylides,  and 
Timotheus,  the  Latinists  must  be  satisfied  with  a  long  series  of  con- 
tracts, leases  of  rustic  farms,  constitution  of  dowry,  contracts  of 
loans  and  emphyteuses.  There  is  no  hope  of  finding  a  book  of  Polybius 
or  of  some  other  historian,  precious  for  us,  but  less  cared  for  by  the 
ancients  on  account  of  the  style  in  which  it  was  written.  We  have 
this  discouraging  outlook  also  from  the  examination  of  the  archaeo- 
logical excavations  made  in  the  ancient  world. 

The  soil  of  ancient  Italy  is  certainly  not  exhausted,  but  nothing 
makes  one  hope  for  discoveries  similar  to  those  of  Greece  and  Asia 
Minor;  and  the  interest  of  the  studious  now  turned  to  the  oriental 
world  does  not  find  it  worth  while  to  explore  the  adult  forms  of  the 
Grffico-Roman  civilization  which  alone  is  offered  by  the  Peninsula. 
We  deduce  from  this  that  the  study  of  Italian  history  at  the  time  of 
the  free  republic  does  not  present  anything  new  for  investigation, 
while  all  the  periods  of  Greek  history  have  been,  one  might  say, 
transformed,  and  the  history  of  Hellenism,  thanks  to  the  works  of 
Mahaffy,  Belocph,  Niese,  Strack,  Bouch^-Leclercq,  and  many  others, 
has  been  rebuilt  from  the  very  beginning.  Let  us  guard  ourselves, 
however,  from  drawing  too  pessimistic  conclusions. 

The  study  of  social  and  political  life  in  the  Roman  Republic  has  not 
presented  any  material  for  new  treatises  nor  any  original  proceedings, 
for  the  reason  that  the  problems  which  contain  the  conclusion  of 
the  subsequent  corollaria  had  not  been  well  solved.  The  life  of  the 
Roman  people,  far  from  constituting  a  characteristic  phenomenon, 
as  it  was  conceived  for  centuries,  and  in  part  was  understood  by 
Mommsen  himself,  is  but  the  last  and  quite  mature  phase  of  that 
civilization  which  continued  and  transformed  the  preceding  activity 
of  the  East.  Laying  aside  the  Roman  annals  which  offer  a  premature 
originality  obtained  through  falsification,  there  remains  only  a  late 
civilization  which  grafts  itself  on  the  developed  Greek  world. 

In  Roman  civilization  there  does  not  exist  a  political  institution 
or  situation  where  there  has  not  been  repercussion  or  modification 
of  the  anterior  civilization  of  Sicily  or  Magna  Grseca,  and  later  of 
Greece  itself  and  of  the  Hellenistic  states.  Only  the  full  and  perfect 
knowledge  of  the  Greek  world  permits  a  clear  understanding  of  the 
Roman  one.  Thus  it  is  clearly  understood  how  a  Roman  history  can 
be  properly  related  only  when  the  great  problems  of  Greek  and 
Hellenistic  history  will  be  solved.  If,  however,  in  the  half-century 
which  has  succeeded  to  the  first  appearance  of  Mommsen 's  book,  there 
have  been  published  at  rare  intervals  some  works  which  have  en- 
larged the  field  of  our  knowledge,  this  is  not  due  to  a  lack  of  material 
adapted  to  problems,  but  to  the  want  of  preparation  to  solve  them. 
We  lack  a  good  history  relating  to  the  period  of  the  Gracchi,  as  well 


PROBLEMS  IN  ROMAN  HISTORY  77 

as  one  on  the  Social  Wars;  we  have  quite  incomplete  expositions  on 
the  civil  wars  or  on  the  conditions  of  the  Roman  provinces  during 
the  Republic. 

But  I  do  not  think  I  am  too  much  of  an  optimist  when  I  maintain 
that  the  new  view  that  we  already  have  of  the  Greek  world,  and  of 
the  improved  comparison  of  law  and  of  the  institutions  of  other 
people,  will  have  the  effect  of  giving  us  in  the  near  future  a  new  and 
quite  original  history  of  the  Roman  Republic. 

The  examination  of  those  problems  which  are  treated  in  the  history 
of  the  Empire  is  leading  us  apparently  to  entirely  different  results. 

The  wonderful  energy  of  Mommsen,  the  great  compilation  of 
Corpus  Inscriptionum  Latinarum,  the  activity  of  a  great  number  of 
learned  men  belonging  to  all  nations  who  accepted  Mommsen's 
fundamental  criteria,  seems  to  have  directed  the  problem  of  the 
Empire  to  a  definite  solution.  To  the  conception  which,  on  the  general 
progress  of  the  Empire,  was  given  by  that  prominent  scholar,  is  to 
be  added  that  of  those  writers  who  treated  the  history  of  the  single 
provinces. 

In  regard  to  the  technical  side,  the  researches  on  the  administra- 
tive, financial,  and  military  organizations,  and  on  public  cult,  made 
under  the  guidance  of  Marquardt  and  Hirschfeld,  lead  to  precise 
reconstructions  which  are  perfect  in  many  respects. 

It  is  true  that  the  Roman  world  has  not  yet  completed  the  bringing 
to  light  of  the  epigraphic  material  hidden  in  the  bowels  of  the  earth  or 
dispersed  over  lands  not  yet  explored  by  the  historian.  It  is  also  true 
that  though  papyri  have  increased  in  a  great  measure  the  knowledge 
of  private  law,  it  may  from  one  moment  to  another  give  us  new  and 
important  information  also  on  public  law.  However,  so  far  as  we  can 
see,  the  general  lines  of  Roman  administration  will  not  be  much 
modified. 

Nevertheless,  all  these  previsions  do  not  lead  us  to  consider  as 
solved  the  problems  concerning  the  political  and  social  reorganization 
of  the  Empire.  Among  modern  writers,  and  especially  among  those 
who  have  followed  the  ideas  of  Mommsen,  the  general  tendency  has 
been  to  glorify  the  happiness  and  welfare  of  the  Roman  world.  They 
have  based  themselves  on  the  existence  of  the  colossal  ruins  scattered 
in  all  the  provinces,  on  the  regularity  and  perfection  of  administra- 
tive and  military  organizations,  on  the  extension  of  commerce,  and 
on  the  enormous  development  of  riches,  rather  than  on  literary  texts 
which  do  not  seem  always  to  help  their  thesis. 

The  discordant  voices  of  ancient  authors  are  interpreted  as  inter- 
ested protests  and  outbursts  of  political  parties.  The  happiness  of 
the  Roman  Peace  and  of  the  Imperial  government  contrasts,  they  say, 
with  the  hardness  and  rapacity  of  republican  oligarchy;  and  the  folly 
and  cruelty  of  princes  is  compensated  by  the  upright  provincial 


78  HISTORY  OF  GREECE,   ROME,   AND   ASIA 

administration.  In  all  this  there  is  evidently  some  exaggeration,  and 
a  new  verification  of  the  problem  imposes  itself.  The  grandeur  and 
the  diffusion  of  temples,  basilicas,  baths,  theatres,  and  aqueducts  in 
all  the  colonies  and  municipalities  of  the  vast  Empire  is  not  sufficient 
to  prove  that  the  general  happiness  and  welfare  were  greater  there 
than  in  the  capital,  which  under  the  different  bad  or  good  emperors 
continued  constantly  to  enrich  itself  with  new  edifices.  Thus  from 
the  wealth  and  elegance  of  the  Roman  churches  of  the  sixteenth  to 
the  eighteenth  centuries  nobody  certainly  would  dare  draw  proofs  in 
favor  of  the  moral  power  of  the  Papacy  during  that  age,  and  of  the 
general  happiness  and  dignity  of  the  citizens  of  that  state.  And  just 
as  it  is  proved  by  monuments,  inscriptions,  edifices,  and  institutions, 
that  the  life  of  the  capital  was  reproduced  in  a  smaller  way  in  the 
provinces,  so  it  is  quite  natural  to  think  that  also  the  moral  and  civil 
condition  should  have  been  reflected  there. 

The  plebs  in  the  capital  lived  on  alms,  at  the  expense  of  the  pro- 
vinces, and  there  a  municipal  nobility  composed  of  a  small  number 
of  families  uses  to  its  advantage  the  resources  of  the  community. 
This  municipal  nobility  will  enrich  the  city  with  monuments  because 
it  will  find  for  itself  a  way  of  consuming  at  its  leisure  the  municipal 
income.  In  Rome,  as  in  the  provinces,  they  endeavor  to  repair  the 
loss  of  the  free  citizenship  by  alimentary  institutions;  but  there  can 
never  be  found  a  spirit  of  charity  for  the  poor  and  the  oppressed; 
something  is  lacking  to  recall  even  the  hospitals  which  were  attached 
to  the  cult  of  Greek  iEsculapius.  The  sportulae  handed  to  the  numer- 
ous and  hungry  clients  under  the  show  of  power,  by  the  disdainful  and 
wealthy  patronus,  makes  one  naturally  think  of  the  alms  which  till  the 
latter  part  of  the  past  century  were  justifying  before  the  plebs  the 
riches  and  idleness  of  the  friars  in  the  Italian  convents.  And  when 
one  thinks  that  Vespasian,  certainly  one  of  the  best  Roman  emperors, 
found  nothing  better  than  to  redouble  the  taxes  on  the  provinces,  and 
imprudently  to  sell  absolutions,  either  for  the  culprit,  or  for  the  inno- 
cent, in  order  to  restore  the  finances  of  the  state;  and  that  he  chose 
as  administrators  of  the  provinces  magistrates  from  whom  he  would 
draw,  as  from  sponges,  the  ill-acquired  riches,  one  may  well  ask  what 
was  the  nature  of  this  general  welfare.  At  any  rate  Hirschf eld's 
researches  have  put  in  evidence  how  little  was  done  during  the  first 
three  centuries  of  the  Empire  to  secure  life  and  property  in  Italy  and 
in  the  provinces.  Tacitus  has  made  us  hear  the  voice  of  protest  of  the 
Roman  families  only.  During  the  Cajsarean  despotism  all  free  speech 
was  silenced;  but  if  the  voice  of  the  provincials  had  reached  us, 
we  could  know  how  many  base  deeds  and  adulations  determined 
the  raising  of  statues  to  the  good  Roman  governors.  We  have  not 
as  many  honorary  inscriptions  for  good  emperors  as  for  the  wicked 
Caracalla.  ■ 


PROBLEMS  IN   ROMAN   HISTORY  79 

In  reality,  under  the  Republic  as  under  the  Empire  the  provinces 
are  but  the  praedia  populi  Romani.   The  Roman  provinces  and  muni- 
cipalities are  only  a  vast  field  which  a  clever/administration  makes 
use  of  to  enrich  imperial  functionaries,  and  the  classes  directing  the 
community.    To  derive  from  these  indications  a  general  happiness 
would  be  equivalent  to  affirming  that  the  remuneration  of  the 
workers  is  great  where  the  shareholders  have  a  large  dividend,  or  if, 
in  regarding  the  economical  side,  we  turn  to  the  noble  spheres  of 
letters,  of  arts  and  sciences,  we  see  everywhere  the  signs  of  a  great 
and  rapid  decadence.    The  age  which  according  to  general  opinion 
receives  its  light  from  Augustus,  and  which  according  to  the  poet's 
song  marks  a  new  century,  is  but  the  beginning  of  the  last  phase  of 
a  great  civilization  which,  already  developed  with  the  Greeks  in  the 
eighth  century,   dies  with  Diocletian  and  Constantine.     Notwith- 
standing what  has  been  said  to  the  contrary,  the  traces  of  decadence 
are  visible  not  after  the  Antonines,  but  with  Augustus  himself,  and 
with  the  incapacity  officially  and  wisely  recognized  by  him  of  con- 
quering Britain,  restraining  the  Germans,  and  taming  the  Parthians. 
Such  decadence  is  after  a  few  generations  quite  visible  in  art.  No  great 
poet  succeeds  Virgil.    Tacitus  marks  the  end  of  the  great  Roman 
historiography.      Art   reproduces   in   large   and   pompous   manner 
crystallized  forms,  and  the  cold  and  artificial  religion  of  state  suffo- 
cates and  dries  any  frank  and  noble  aspiration  in  the  human  soul. 
Free  speech  is  silent  everywhere;    cold  rhetoric  and  declamation 
succeed  to  eloquence.    And  in  sciences,  with  the  exception  of  the 
development  of  great  public  edifices  which,  as  the  history  of  Apollo- 
dorus  demonstrates,  is  always  under  the  high  inspiration  of  Greek 
doctrine,  all  is  transformed  in  a  pure  empiricism  drying  the  germs  of 
theoretical  speculation.   Geometry  has  become  surveying,  and  medi- 
cine, judged  unworthy  of  being  studied  by  a  Roman  citizen,  is  left 
to  the  Greeks.    Ethics  and  philosophy  are  transformed  into  law  and 
regulation,  which  obliges  all  to  obey  the  will  of  the  legislator,  who  is 
clever  in  law,  but  more  so  in  handling  the  sword.    And  the  greatest 
pleasure  of  the  Roman  society  is  not  to  hear,  as  in  the  fine  Athenian 
times,  the  pricking  playfulness  of  Aristophanes  or  divine  verse  of 
Euripides,  but  rather  to  assist  at  the  games  of  the  Circus,  where  the 
blood  of  the  dying  gladiators  and  that  of  the  wild  beasts  stir  vip 
voluptuousness  and  a  desire  for  struggle.  There  still  remains  military 
glory.  Butpatriotismisalready  changing  the  career  of  arms;  Italians 
are  despoiled  of  their  weapons,  and  the  legion,  according  to  an  an- 
cient  inscription  from  Aquileia,  becomes  barbara.     In  the  Roman 
society  there  is  no  place  for  the  unwealthy,  and  it  is  quite  natural 
that'  the  humble  and  afflicted  should  rapidly  contribute  to  render 
vigorous  the  incipient  Christian  society  which,  having  later  become 
powerful,  conquers  and  then  associates  itself  to  the  decaying  Empire. 


80  HISTORY   OF   GREECE,  ROME,   AND   ASIA 

The  love  of  war  and  glory  still  lasting  through  centuries  in  Europe, 
the  greatness  of  the  monumental  remains,  and  the  inheritance  of 
Roman  political  organizations  also  accepted  by  the  Church,  the 
Roman  laws  which  absorbed  all  the  legislative  work  of  the  ancient 
world,  the  cares  for  the  defense  of  the  Rhine,  Danube,  and  of  Asia 
Minor,  the  song  of  Virgil,  the  prose  of  Cicero  and  Livy,  are  such  great 
events  that  they  could  not  be  entirely  forgotten,  not  even  by  the  rough 
Middle  Ages.  The  comparison  between  Romanity  and  the  subsequent 
barbarism  of  Europe  is  enough  to  explain  the  reverent  admiration 
which  also  in  these  last  centuries  has  existed  for  the  great  merits 
of  Roman  civilization.  But  an  exact  comparison  of  the  origin  of  all 
ancient  civilization  and  the  ties  that  the  Latin  world  has  had  with 
the  Greek  naturally  leads  to  a  better  understood  and  measured 
admiration.  When  studying  the  light  we  must  not  neglect  the 
shadows.  But  still  recognizing  all  the  merits  of  Roman  civilization, 
we  must  keep  in  mind  all  that  was  done  by  the  preceding  nations. 
Rome  civilized  the  coast  of  Northern  Africa,  but  we  must  not  forget, 
as  some  critic  has  done,  the  preparatory  work  of  the  Carthaginians 
from  whom  Rome  learned  for  tlie  first  time  the  arts  of  agriculture. 
It  is  Rome  that  has  the  merit  of  having  civilized  the  Gauls,  but  we 
must  not  pass  over  in  silence  the  extended  and  beneficial  preparatory 
work  of  the  Greek  Massilia,  which  for  its  civil  institutions  and  its 
commerce  was  once  quite  superior  to  Rome,  and  even  during  the 
Empire  was  justly  chosen  by  Romans  as  a  seat  for  the  moral  educa- 
tion of  her  sons.  An  exact  balance  of  all  that  has  been  produced  by 
the  Roman  civilization  has  not  yet  been  struck.  This  examination 
will,  certainly  in  many  instances,  prove  of  honor  to  the  Italian  people, 
to  whom  the  West  owes  the  transmission  of  light  on  the  old  Hellenic 
civilization.  Many  statistics  and  comparative  works  that  are  still 
needed,  for  instance,  for  the  Iberian  Peninsula,  have  not  been 
written.  And  such  researches  will  have  to  consider  density  of  the 
population,  the  true  condition  and  transformation  of  slavery,  the 
diffusion  of  the  Eastern  cults,  and  finally  of  the  first  Christian  society. 
But  among  all  the  problems  which  have  not  yet  been  solved,  the  most 
difficult  and  the  most  complex  is  always  the  one  on  the  value  of  the 
political  work  of  the  Emperors  themselves. 

Mommsen  rightly  observed  that  legend  is  found  just  as  much  in 
the  life  of  Fabricius  as  in  the  anecdote  of  the  Emperor  Gains;  and  as 
Willrich  has  recently  demonstrated,  many  data  of  Imperial  traditions 
deserve  a  new  revision.  But  in  order  to  resolve  the  problem  of  authen- 
ticity in  the  ancient  tales,  it  is  not  enough  to  establish  researches, 
even  diligent  ones,  on  the  discordance  and  on  the  presumable  value 
of  the  historical  sources.  Such  complex  problems  can  be  solved  only 
by  the  examination  of  other  historical  periods.  The  critic  who  studies 
the  Empire  is  immediately  impressed  by  the  ferociousness  of  the 


PROBLEMS   IN   ROMAN   HISTORY  81 

degenerate  princes.  But  in  the  end  tiie  cruelty  of  Tiberius  is  not  greater 
than  that  of  Sylla,  and  the  intrigues  of  the  courts  of  the  Seleucids 
and  Ptolemies  are  useful  in  making  one  understand  the  plotting  of  the 
Palatine  Imperial  Palaces.  And  without  having  recourse  to  the  easy 
but  unhealthy  remedy  of  fixed  formulas  taken  from  premature 
treatises  on  the  historical  development  of  all  societies,  it  is  clear  that 
in  the  study  of  the  ancient  Germanic  races  or  of  the  oriental  mon- 
archies one  will  often  find  material  adapted  to  clear  up  problems 
of  the  ancient  classic  world.  Such  study,  for  instance,  can  be  useful 
to  the  solution  of  the  controverted  problem  of  the  Scriptores  Historiae 
Augustae,  much  more  than  the  infinite  series  of  proceedings  which  will 
be  expounded  by  the  philologist,  and  more  than  an  analytic  diction- 
ary of  those  texts. 

At  any  rate,  the  history  of  the  Empire  contains  problems  which 
can  be  referred  also  in  great  part  to  posterior  history.  The  modern 
historian  lives  in  an  epoch  when  war  is  generally  considered  as  an 
evil  to  be  avoided;  the  scholar  who  is  not  accustomed  to  arms  spends 
his  time  between  the  documents  of  the  archives  and  the  ruins  of  the 
excavations.  He  does  not  feel  the  necessity  of  connecting  military 
events  which  he  is  not  in  a  condition  to  understand.  If  necessary 
he  turns  to  the  opinion  of  some  military  person  more  or  less  used  to 
interpret  and  to  understand  military  texts.  Anyhow  modern  age  is 
tending  to  solve  problems  of  social  character,  and  critics,  generally, 
if  only  for  the  love  of  novelty,  ascertain  and  follow  the  tastes  of  their 
contemporaries.  And  more  than  to  the  problem  of  moral  conscience, 
which  determines  the  function  of  the  highest  human  energies,  they 
try  to  transport,  in  the  ancient  world,  those  facts  which  are  torment- 
ing modern  societies,  without  sufficiently  taking  into  consideration 
different  conditions  in  culture  and  faith,  in  density  of  population  and 
in  social  organisms. 

An  historian  of  the  first  order,  Polybius,  in  finding  fault  with  his- 
torians given  only  to  the  study  of  books,  praised  Ephorus  for  his  being 
in  condition  to  describe  a  land  battle  or  a  naval  operation,  just  as 
Gibbon's  contemporaries  appreciated  his  military  knowledge.  Poly- 
bius himself,  quite  an  expert  in  arms  as  in  political  management, 
was  not  wrong.  To  narrate  the  destinies  of  the  world,  determined  by 
the  result  of  mihtary  events,  without  being  in  a  condition  to  interpret 
them,  is  like  writing  a  history  of  literature  and  sciences,  giving  only 
the  names  of  the  authors  and  the  titles  of  the  works,  without  examin- 
ing the  contents.  To  speak  of  Alexander  and  Hannibal  without  con- 
sidering the  merits  of  their  strategy  and  tactical  movements,  means 
to  give  up  a  good  part  of  their  work,  and  not  to  understand  the  nature 
of  the  military  states  in  which  those  same  events  happened,  and  for 
which  they  were  written.  And  this  fact  holds  more  for  the  Roman 
world  which  lived  always  in  arms  than  for  the  Greek  civilization. 


82  HISTORY  OF  GREECE,  ROME,   AND  ASIA 

Certainly  the  modern  historian  must  not  limit  himself  to  narrate  that 
which,  according  to  the  ancients,  formed  the  essence  of  their  history. 
He  has,  after  all,  the  duty  to  retrace  those  elements  of  which  they 
had  not  a  full  knowledge,  and  which  are  useful  in  explaining  the 
complex  development  of  humanity.  But  in  such  a  case,  besides  the 
study  of  economic  forms,  it  is  necessary  to  turn  one's  attention  to 
the  development  of  religious  and  moral  opinion  and  to  the  history 
of  arts  and  sciences.  And  the  investigation  of  the  reasons  which 
determine  the  reciprocal  action  of  all  these  elements  and  the  prepon- 
derance of  one  over  the  other,  according  to  the  different  ages  and 
places,  constitutes  the  most  complex  problem  which  the  historian  of 
the  ancient  world  is  called  upon  to  solve. 

The  method  of  making  chapters  in  literary,  artistic,  philosophical 
history,  from  the  narrative  which  in  substance  is  constituted  of  ex- 
ternal facts,  is  now  out  of  date.  The  history  of  a  people,  just  as  the 
history  of  an  individual,  is  subject  to  transformations  which  modify 
its  activity.  If  the  history  of  the  Roman  people  has  remained  essen- 
tially military  and  political,  that  of  the  Greek  races  presents  instead 
the  phenomenon  of  different  elements  combining  with  one  another. 
The  literary  and  artistic  history  of  the  Athens  of  the  fifth  century  bal- 
ances that  more  strictly  political,  but  the  development  of  criticism 
and  of  sciences  constitutes  certainly  one  of  the  most  important  char- 
acteristics of  the  age  of  the  Diadochi.  Thus  for  the  period  of  the 
Spanish  preponderance,  the  Italian  nations  will  very  rarely  give  occa- 
sion to  speak  of  arms,  but  will  offer,  instead,  material  for  art,  for  the 
study  of  the  works  of  Galileo  and  of  Bruno. 

PoUtics,  military  art,  law,  economy,  fine  art,  science,  from  the 
historical  point  of  view,  form  a  complex  whole  before  the  history 
of  the  ancient  and  modern  world.  And  since  the  unlimited  increase 
of  knowledge  in  the  branches  of  learning  makes  this  task  more  and 
more  difficult,  it  is  evident  that  our  education,  freed  from  useless 
teachings  and  old  prejudices,  must  be  strengthened  by  the  study  of 
the  sciences.  But  it  will  not  be  enough  to  reform  the  organization 
of  our  colleges,  we  shall  have  still  to  break  the  barriers  of  our  faculties; 
because  if  it  is  true  that  no  science  can  improve  without  long  and 
detailed  technical  researches,  it  is  also  true  that  the  studies  of  special- 
ists contain  rarely  important  results,  unless  they  are  guided  by 
large  conceptions  and  are  coordinated  with  various  and  kindred 
sciences. 

And  among  the  sciences  which  are  destined  to  make  future  his- 
toriography improve,  politics  comes  first.  This  recommendation  may 
at  first  seem  ingenuous  or  altogether  useless,  unless  one  consider 
how,  after  having  naturally  exempted  some  famous  works,  nearly  all 
the  modern  production  in  the  field  of  classic  antiquity  is  due  to  the 
activity  of  the  philologist.    The  necessity  of  investigating  the  literary 


PROBLEMS   IN   ROMAN   HISTORY  83 

texts,  of  long  and  detailed  researches  on  the  reciprocal  dependence 
of  the  sources,  of  interpreting  epigraphic  texts,  and  now  more  than 
formerly,  also  the  papyri,  render  the  help  of  philological  training 
precious  and  indispensable. 

But  it  is  also  just  to  recognize  that  in  nearly  all  the  historical  pro- 
duction, due  to  the  philological  school,  the  political  sense  is  nearly 
always  missing. 

It  is  then  necessary  to  see  to  it  that  those  who  will  be  called  upon 
to  solve  the  future  problems,  though  dedicating  themselves  to  all  the 
sciences  which  constitute  the  historical  organism,  should  take  part  in 
political  life,  avoiding,  however,  becoming  victims  of  those  prejudices 
which  guide  the  parties  that  are  the  natural  product  of  the  political 
atmosphere.  And  of  all  these  preconceptions  one  of  the  most  dam- 
aging is  that  born  of  blind  patriotism.  Few  among  the  human  senti- 
ments have  contributed  so  much  as  patriotism  to  keep  alive  the 
remembrance  of  historical  facts,  and  to  promote  the  increment  of 
researches  in  the  past.  But  it  is  not  less  true  that  this  sentiment  has 
brought  the  greatest  disadvantage  to  historical  truth. 

It  is  superfluous  to  recall  examples  of  the  first  cases;  it  is  much 
more  useful  instead  to  observe  in  how  many  instances  the  objective 
history  of  a  people  has  been  usefully  told  by  strangers  and  even  by 
rival  nations.  If  Polybius  was  able  to  expose  a  narrative  of  Roman 
events,  as  no  other  Italian  historian  could,  this  did  not  arise  only 
from  his  political  culture  and  clear-sightedness,  but  also  from  the 
fact  that,  belonging  to  a  conquered  nation,  he  was  not  blinded  by 
national  pride.  This  greater  objectivity  distinguished  also  the  polit- 
ical work  of  Trogus  Pompeius  from  the  annals  of  the  Paduan  Livy. 
The  horizon  of  the  eloquent  Livy  did  not  extend  beyond  the  Urbs  and 
Patavium,  while  Trogus  Pompeius  saw  the  Roman  deeds  from  the 
point  of  view  of  universal  history,  and  therefore  gave  to  them  a  better 
proportioned  part  in  the  history  of  the  world.  If  the  histories  of  Theo- 
pompus  or  other  authors  known  to  Plutarch  had  come  to  us,  we 
should  certainly  have  quite  a  different  history  of  the  Persian  wars 
from  that  of  Herodotus,  inspired  by  the  glorification  of  Athens. 
Germany,  with  Ranke's  and  Von  Sybel's,  has  given  the  best  histories 
of  the  Catholic  counter-reform  and  of  the  French  Revolution.  And 
we  do^not  need  to  mention  to  you  the  value  of  Prescott's  and  Irving's 
studies  on  the  most  brilliant  periods  of  the  Spanish  domination.  The 
patriotic  historian  is  bound  by  a  thousand  prejudices  of  education, 
and  is  not  always  in  condition  to  judge  with  perfect  clearness  the 
events  of  his  country.  Even  if  he  be  free  from  preconceptions,  he 
feels  tightly  bound  by  many  considerations,  and  if  he  says  all  the 
truth  he  exposes  himself  to  censure.  Still  the  treating  of  the  same 
arguments  with  stereotyped  views  does  not  lead  to  any  scientific 
results.    What  is  of  advantage  to  the  progress  of  sciences  and  arts 


84  HISTORY  OF  GREECE,   ROME,   AND   ASIA 

is  freshness  of  impressions  and  new  energies  which  substitute  them- 
selves for  the  old  ones.  And  since  you  Americans,  with  a  new  and  un- 
failing impulse  of  youth,  open  your  universities  to  the  study  of  all  the 
problems  of  old  Europe,  let  us  hope  that  with  your  work  a  more  per- 
fect knowledge  of  the  ancient  world  may  be  reached.  Like  all  young 
and  robust  organisms,  you  are  naturally  inclined  to  break  down  the 
tendency  toward  routine  which  too  often  binds  the  work  of  European 
scholars.  From  the  contact  of  old  with  new  theories,  there  will  cer- 
tainly come  out  sparks  which  will  be  destined  to  throw  new  light 
on  the  infinite  problems  of  the  classical  world.  The  study  of  the 
early  belief  and  social  forms  of  America  has  contributed  to  explain 
questions  of  ancient  mythology  and  classical  anthropology  which  re- 
mained inexplicable  mysteries  for  generations  of  learned  men.  In  turn 
the  political  study  of  old  Europe,  and  especially  of  the  classical  world, 
will  make  more  clearly  understood  the  destinies  to  which  the  United 
States  of  America  are  called. 

In  fact,  the  conception  that  political  history  should  be  studied  by 
itself,  with  no  other  aim  but  mere  curiosity,  must  be  rejected,  as  well 
as  the  idea  that  any  other  science  is  not  destined  to  have  a  practical 
application  in  life.  The  purpose  of  this  great  Congress,  to  which  you 
have  called  all  sciences  to  be  represented,  pure  and  experimental, 
theoretical  and  practical,  is  the  best  guarantee  that  the  scientific, 
American  society  will  not  be  lost  either  among  the  fogs  of  abstrac- 
tions or  the  vulgarity  of  empiricism.  If  among  the  decadent  nations 
or  those  about  to  decay,  men  who  are  without  ideality  and  Avho  ignore 
art  or  science  are  put  at  the  helm,  in  the  countries  which  are  destined 
to  a  prosperous  future  public  interests  are  intrusted  to  those  who  best 
understand  the  history,  and  therefore  the  hopes,  of  their  country. 

It  is  not  strange  that  nearly  all  Roman  historians  should  have 
been  statesmen;  and  statesmen  were  Machiavelli,  Macaulay,  and 
Bancroft.  Without  knowing  the  biological  precedents  the  cure  of  an 
invalid  is  not  possible,  just  as  without  a  long  experience  of  the  past 
it  is  not  possible  to  provide  for  the  future  of  nations. 

The  study  of  old  Europe,  its  glories,  and  its  errors,  is  a  sacred 
patrimony  which  she  divides  with  the  United  States,  which  have  the 
task  of  forming  a  new  and  great  civilized  society.  The  Roman  and 
Greek  civilization  is  a  great  part  of  this  patrimony,  and  is  worthy 
of  your  cares,  because  it  contains  the  best  part  of  institutions  and 
traditions  which  you  are  called  upon  to  study  and  partly  to  follow. 

The  immense  space  of  sea  which  separates  you  from  Europe  and 
from  Eastern  Asia,  the  lack  of  danger  of  an  invasion  from  the  north, 
and  even  less  so  from  the  south,  seem  at  first  glance  to  place  the 
United  States  in  a  situation  quite  different  from  that  of  the  old 
European  civilization.  But  the  speed  which  will  be  attained  by 
steamers  in  the  near  future  will  render  these  distances  proportion- 


PROBLEMS   IN  ROMAN   HISTORY  85 

ately  smaller  than  the  Ionian  and  the  Tyrrhene  seas  were  once  for 
the  Athenians  navigating  toward  Syracuse,  and  for  the  Romans 
fighting  against  Carthage. 

Greece  and  Rome  had  in  the  Mediterranean  a  position  which 
recalls,  in  part,  the  interoceanic  situation  of  the  United  States. 
They  transmitted  successively  to  the  West  the  civilization  received 
from  the  East,  and  the  United  States  are  already  called  to  take  great 
part  in  the  transformation  of  the  yellow  races. 

The  economic  and  social  foundation  of  the  Romans  was  based 
on  slavery;  you,  instead,  have  freed  the  negro  from  bondage.  But 
the  complete  participation  of  the  latter  in  your  political  counsels 
constitutes  one  of  the  greatest  problems  which  you  are  called  to 
solve.  And  it  will  be  all  your  glory  if  you  shall  find  a  better  solution 
than  the  ancient  world.  The  immense  development  of  your  finances, 
which  seems  fabulous  to  us  old  races,  reminds  one  of  the  similar 
enormous  development  during  the  Empire.  You  have  the  daring 
and  practical  mind  of  the  Romans,  the  greatness  of  their  works, 
and  the  firmness  of  their  character.  But  the  love  for  sciences  and 
arts  protects  you  from  the  danger  which  threatens  the  plutocratic 
societies.  This  love  for  science  and  art,  which  causes  you  to  multiply 
your  universities,  libraries,  and  nmseums,  takes,  however,  its  first 
and  more  vital  inspiration  from  that  brilliant  Greek  civilization 
which  transfused  itself  into  the  Italian  Renaissance.  And  while  in 
so  many  parts  of  Europe  old  forms  of  social  organizations  are  still 
living,  you  are,  on  the  contrary,  destined  to  maintain  brighter  than 
ever  the  most  luminous  flame  of  the  old  Greek  and  Latin  civilization. 

The  cult  of  that  freedom  which  you  placed  as  a  glorious  symbol 
just  where  the  Atlantic  touches  your  shores  is  an  omen  of  unham- 
pered enterprise  and  active  life  for  all  those  who,  coming  to  you  from 
distant  countries,  have  the  aspiration  to  share  your  community. 

The  glorious  history  of  your  independence  shines  through  the 
greatness  of  Washington  and  Lincoln.  You  are  worthy  of  continuing 
the  cult  of  Pericles,  Timoleon,  and  Scipio;  and  permit  me,  to  whom 
you  have  given  the  great  honor  of  speaking  about  the  ancient  civil- 
ization of  the  land  of  Columbus,  Amerigo,  and  Cabot,  to  recall  here 
my  fellow  citizen,  Carlo  Botta;  only  a  few  years  after  your  war  of 
independence,  the  Piedmontese  Carlo  Botta  was  the  first  among 
Italians  to  relate  your  history,  glorifying  the  virtues  of  Washington, 
and  through  your  example  endeavoring  to  stamp  a  seal  of  infamy 
on  the  tyranny  then  reigning  in  Europe,  and  to  spur  the  soul  of  his 
citizens  to  the  cult  of  freedom. 


A    GENERAL  SURVEY  OF  THE  HISTORY  OF  ASIA,  WITH 
SPECIAL  REFERENCE  TO  CHINA  AND  THE  FAR  EAST 

BY   HENRI    CORDIER 

[Henri  Cordier,  Professor  of  I'Ecole  des  Langues  Orien tales  Vivantes,  1881, 
Paris,  b.  August  8,  1849,  New  Orleans,  Louisiana.  A.B.  University  of 
Paris;  Litt.D.  University  of  Cape  of  Good  Hope:  Chinese  Mandarin  of  the 
third  class,  with  decoration  of  "  Precious  Star, "  third  degree;  Professor  at  Ecole 
Libre  des  Sciences  Politiques,  1886-95;  Secretary  of  the  Chinese  Educational 
Mission,  1877-81;  President  of  the  Council  Soci6t6  de  Geographic,  1904; 
Member  of  the  Scientific  Committee  of  the  Ministry  of  Public  Instruction; 
Honorary  Member  Royal  Asiatic  Society;  Hon.  Corresponding  Member  of  the 
Royal  Geographical  Society;  Vice-President  of  the  Soci^t^  des  Traditions  Popu- 
laires;  Socio  della  R.  Deputazione  Veneta  di  Storia  Patria,  etc.  Author  of 
Histoire  des  Relations  de  la  Chine  avec  les  Puissances  Occidentales;  Atlas  Sino 
Coreen ;  Bibliotheca  Sinica ;  Marco  Polo.  Editor  and  founder  of  the  Revue  de 
V Extreme  Orient  and  of  the  T'oung-pas.] 

In  attempting  to  draw  in  less  than  an  hour  a  sketch  of  the  history 
of  Asia,  I  am  fully  aware  of  the  difficulty  as  well  as  of  the  grandeur  of 
the  task  which  has  been  intrusted  to  me.  It  cannot  be  expected  that 
in  the  short  space  of  time  allotted  to  the  lecturer,  a  complete  idea 
of  this  vast  subject  can  be  given.  I  can  only  sum  up  the  main  points 
and  designate  the  landmarks  of  the  unbroken  chain  of  facts  which 
from  our  days  goes  back  to  the  most  ancient  period  of  the  history 
of  mankind.  When  we  search  into  the  remotest  past  of  Asia,  the 
geologist,  not  the  historian,  presents  a  very  surprising  spectacle  to  our 
view:  two  lands  stand  opposite;  one,  to  the.  north,  shaping  a  long 
arch  round  what  is  to-day  Irkutsk;  the  other,  to  the  south,  consti- 
tutes a  portion  of  the  future  peninsula  of  Hindustan;  a  large  mediter- 
ranean sea,  to  which  M.  Suess  has  given  the  name  of  Tethys,  separates 
the  two  continents;  this  ocean,  in  gradually  drying  up,  has  by  its  folds 
given  rise  to  the  Pamirs,  the  Himalayas,  the  high  Tibetan  Table- 
land, —  and  its  total  disappearance  and  the  union  of  the  two, 
northern  and  southern,  lands  gave  birth  to  Asia. 

If  we  seek  into  this  vast  continent  for  the  territory  having  an 
authentic  record  of  the  oldest  times,  we  find  it  in  the  lands  of  biblical 
tradition,  Chaldea  and  Elam,  where  Asia  tells  again  the  story  of  its 
past  with  the  most  irrefragable  evidence  in  the  inscriptions  registered 
on  stones  which,  lying  buried  for  centuries,  have  withstood  the  wear 
and  tear  of  ages;  thus  has  been  revealed  to  us  the  oldest  code  of  the 
world,  the  Law  of  Hammurabi,  discovered  at  Susa  by  M.  J.  de 
Morgan,  and  described  by  the  Dominican  Father  v.  Scheil,  both 
Frenchmen.  However,  if  Elam  carries  us  back  to  a  period  further  than 
four  thousand  years  before  Christ,  other  countries  of  Asia,  including 
those  which  are  supposed  to  possess  the  most  ancient  civilization, 
are  far  from  giving  the  material  proof  of  the  high  antiquity  to 
which  their  books  and  their  legends  lay  an  unfounded  claim. 


HISTORY  OF   ASIA  — GENERAL  SURVEY  87 

India  cannot  boast  of  a  single  monument  which  for  age  is  to  be  com- 
pared with  those  of  Nineveh  and  of  Egypt,  and  before  the  eighth  cen- 
tury B.C.,  no  sohd  basis  to  the  history  of  China  is  to  be  found.  The 
perishable  quality  of  the  materials  used  in  rearing  the  edifices  of  this 
last  country  cannot  allow  us  to  hope  that  the  zeal  of  modern  archaeo- 
logists will  unearth  the  secret  of  monuments  vanished  long  ago. 

In  the  actual  state  of  science,  theories  only  can  be  imagined  to 
account  for  the  genesis  of  Asiatic  nations,  and  a  common  origin 
exists  but  in  the  fancy  of  a  few  learned  men.  It  was  very  natural 
to  look  for  the  first  migrations  and  the  first  civihzations  about 
Elam  and  Chaldea,  and  from  this  authentic  and  venerable  source 
let  flow  the  great  streams  to  the  various  extremities  of  Asia;  it  has 
been  possible  from  isolated  facts  to  build  ingenious  theories  like 
that  of  Terrien  de  Lacouperie,  but  at  the  present  time  nothing 
definite  gives  us  a  right  to  broach  an  opinion  with  regard  to  the 
primitive  inhabitants  of  Oriental  Asia  and  their  cradle. 

When  I  was  honored  with  an  invitation  to  come  and  speak  here, 
I  believed  it  to  be  expected  that  I  should  not  delay  too  much  in 
treating  of  the  ancient  times  of  the  history  of  Asia,  and  in  dealing 
with  facts  which  are  important  in  themselves,  but  are  nevertheless 
secondary  in  their  results.  What  I  am  expected  to  give  is  a  general 
view,  an  enaemble.  I  shall  try  to  show  the  chief  influences  which  gave 
life  to  the  immense  Asiatic  Continent  and  to  mark  out  the  place  it 
occupies  in  the  general  history  of  the  world,  making  large  allowance 
for  Central  Asia  and  the  Far  East,  which  have  been  the  object  of 
ray  special  study. 

During  a  long  time  Europe  remained  in  complete  ignorance  of 
the  steady  though  irregular  movements  of  the  populations  of  Asia, 
which  was  really  a  volcano  in  eruption,  the  terrible  effects  of  which 
were  felt  afar.  When  the  Roman  Empire  crumbling  to  pieces  was 
threatened  westwards  by  the  barbarians  of  Germanic  race, — Teu- 
tonic, Gothic,  or  Scandinavian,  —  these,  pressed  in  their  turn  by  the 
wild  hordes  from  Asia,  like  a  rolling  wave  invaded  the  Empire,  and 
crushed  in  by  the  new-comers  founded  as  far  as  Spain  more  or  less 
flourishing  kingdoms  at  the  expense  of  the  domain  of  the  Csesars. 
The  march  of  the  Huns  from  the  heart  of  Asia  is  in  great  part  the 
cause  of  these  migrations  of  people;  menacing  the  Chinese  territory, 
driving  away  the  Yue-chi,  a  branch  of  the  Eastern  Tartars,  who,  after 
several  halts  of  which  we  shall  speak  further  on,  carved  for  them- 
selves an  empire  on  the  banks  of  the  Indus  at  the  cost  of  the  oc- 
cupiers of  the  valley  of  this  river.  The  invading  Huns,  like  a  huge 
wave,  gained  gradually  on  from  horde  to  horde,  from  tribe  to  tribe, 
from  people  to  people,  till  they  reached  Europe  which,  when  struck  by 
the  Scourge  of  God,  could  not  discern  whence  the  blow  was  first  dealt. 


88  HISTORY   OF   GREECE,  ROME,   AND   ASIA 

During  the  course  of  the  fifth  century,  the  Huns  under  Attila 
had  not  only  subdued  all  the  Tartar  nations  of  Central  Asia,  but 
had  also  brought  under  the  yoke  the  whole  of  the  German  tribes 
between  the  Volga  and  the  Rhine.  The  defeat  of  the  great  chief  by 
the  allied  armies  of  the  Franks,  the  Visigoths,  and  the  Romans  at 
the  battle  of  the  Catalaunic  Fields  (451),  his  death  two  years  later, 
stopped  the  tide  of  the  Eastern  invaders;  as  the  victory  of  Charles 
Martel  at  Poitiers  (732),  three  centuries  later,  set  bounds  to  the  throng 
of  Arabs,  who,  after  having  torn  the  north  of  Africa  from  the  Roman 
Empire,  had  crossed  the  sea,  destroying  the  power  of  the  Visigoths, 
who,  after  a  long  migratory  period  throughout  Europe,  had  appar- 
ently found  a  permanent  home  in  the  Iberian  Peninsula. 

The  invasion  of  the  barbarians,  who  flocked  together  to  share 
the  spoils  of  the  agonizing  Roman  Empire  in  the  fifth  century,  will 
continue  later  on  with  the  Mongol  raids  and  till  1453,  the  year  of  the 
capture  of  Constantinople  by  the  Turkish  Osmanlis,  which  we  may 
consider  to  mark  the  climax  of  the  Asiatic  encroachments. 

We  shall  see  the  counterpart  of  these  great  movements  when  the 
Western  nations,  after  doubling  the  Cape  of  Good  Hope,  shall  resume 
the  route  of  India  in  the  course  of  the  sixteenth  century. 

Buddhism,  the  doctrine  of  the  disciples  of  Shakyamuni,  has  no 
doubt  been  one  of  the  principal  means  of  facilitating  the  intercourse 
of  the  nations  throughout  Asia;  it  has  been  the  sun  at  which  the 
civilization  of  many  have  lit  their  torch;  indeed  a  writer  could  say 
—  not  without  some  good  reason  —  that  the  history  of  Buddhism 
is  in  itself  the  history  of  Eastern  Asia. 

The  spread  of  Buddhism  and  its  wider  diffusion  from  India  to  the 
remainder  of  Asia  was  greatly  increased  by  the  support  received  from 
some  princes  and  by  the  peregrinations  of  its  devotees. 

After  the  death  of  Alexander  the  Great,  whose  campaign  against 
Poms  brought  India  into  contact  with  the  great  Hellenic  civilization, 
one  of  the  lieutenants  of  the  great  conqueror,  Seleucus,  took  as 
his  share  of  the  inheritance  the  eastern  part  of  the  Empire,  but  as 
early  as  304  he  was  obliged  to  surrender  the  satrapy  of  India  to  a 
man  of  low  condition  called  Chandragupta  by  the  Buddhists  and 
Sandracottos  by  the  Greeks.  Chandragupta  was  the  founder  in 
Magadha  of  a  dynasty  of  princes;  his  grandson  Asoka,  surnamed 
Piyadasi  (died  240  b.  c),  in  establishing  a  board  of  foreign  missions, 
Dharma  Mahamatra,  gave  a  considerable  extension  to  Buddhism, 
not  only  in  his  own  dominions,  but  also  in  the  surrounding  countries 
as  far  as  Deccan, 

On  the  other  hand,  the  tribes  of  Eastern  Tartars  known  to  the 
Chinese  as  the  Yue-chi,  driven  by  force  to  the  west  by  the  Hiung-nu 
(Huns),  divided  themselves  into  two  branches;    the  Little  Yue-chi 


HISTORY   OF   ASIA— GENERAL   SURVEY  89 

who  settled  in  Tibet,  and  the  Great  Yue-chi  who  advanced  to  the 
banks  of  the  Hi,  and  in  163  b.  c.  occupied,  in  the  place  of  the  Sakasy 
the  country  south  of  the  Tien-shan  where  Yarkand  and  Kashgar 
now  stand.  Some  years  later  the  Yue-chi,  pressed  in  their  turn  by  the 
Wu-sun,  once  more  drove  the  Sakas  out  of  Sogdiana,  beyond  the 
Oxus,  to  the  country  watered  by  the  Cabul  River.  About  35  b.  c. 
the  leader  of  these  Yue-chi  subdued  Cabul,  Kashmir,  and  Penjal. 
The  conversion  to  Buddhism  of  one  of  his  successors,  Kanichka,  the 
greatest  chief  of  the  Yue-chi  or  Indo-Scyths,  gave  a  fresh  impulse  to 
the  zeal  of  the  followers  of  Shakyamuni;  from  15  b.  c,  to  45  a.  d.  was 
held  in  Kashmir  the  great  oecumenic  council  which  finally  revised  the 
canon  accepted  in  the  north  but  rejected  by  the  Church  of  Ceylon. 

We  may  be  asked  at  what  time  Buddhism  reached  China.  We 
camiot  answer  with  any  degree  of  certainty.  Some  savants  give  221 
and  219  b.  c.  as  the  date  of  the  introduction  of  Buddhism  into  China; 
there  is  nothing  really  authoritative  to  support  their  assertion.  We 
may  fairly  suppose  that  the  warlike  expeditions  against  the  Hiung-nu 
conveyed  to  China  some  knowledge  of  Buddhist  worship.  The  new 
doctrine  was  introduced  into  China  by  the  way  of  Central  Asia;  one 
thing  is  certain,  that  in  the  year  2  b.  c.  an  embassy  was  sent  by  the 
Chinese  Emperor  Ngai  to  the  Ta  Yue-chi  and  that  its  chief  got  some 
oral  information  about  the  new  religion.  Buddhism  was  recognized 
officially  in  China  by  the  Han  Dynasty;  the  dynasty  of  the  Later  Han 
(24-220  A.  D.)  had  dominated  in  Central  Asia,  and,  though  weak- 
ened for  years,  their  rule  had  been  maintained  with  still  more  force 
by  Wu  Ti,  of  the  Western  Tsin  (265-290).  To  this  period  (269) 
belong  the  documents,  so  interesting  for  the  administration  as  well 
as  for  the  religion  of  this  region,  discovered  during  recent  years  by 
Dr.  M.  A.  Stein,  of  the  Indian  Educational  Service,  at  Uzun  Tati,  be- 
tween Khotan  and  Niya,  in  the  desert  of  Takkla  Makkan,  explored 
by  Sven  Hedin.  Of  that  time  also  are  the  documents  dug  from  the 
sand-buried  town  of  Lau-lan  near  the  Lob-nor,  by  Sven  Hedin  him- 
self. The  Hindu  civilization  which  borders  on  the  desert  of  Gobi,  from 
Khotan  to  the  Lob-nor,  to  Hami  and  to  Turf  an,  vanished  rapidly  after 
Wu  Ti;  under  the  great  T'ang  Dynasty,  during  the  second  half  of  the 
eighth  century,  the  Tibetans  threatened  the  authority  of  the  Chinese 
in  the  country  of  the  Four  Garrisons  (Kucha,  Khotan,  Karashahr, 
and  Kashgar),  namely,  Eastern  Turkestan.  From  791  onwards  the 
Tibetans,  masters  of  Turfan  and  the  surrounding  countries,  had 
completely  ousted  the  Chinese,  whose  mandarins  had  been  recalled  in 
784  by  the  Imperial  Government  on  account  of  the  hopeless  situa- 
tion in  the  region. 

The  Chinese  Buddhist  pilgrims,  eager  to  get  the  good  word  from 
the  source  itself,  were  drawn  along  the  roads  of  High  Asia  to  the 
valley  of  the  Sacred  Ganges  in  quest  of  the  books  giving  the  Key  to 


90  HISTORY  OF   GREECE,   ROME,   AND   ASIA 

the  Holy  Doctrine;  since  the  fourth  century  large  bodies  of  pilgrims, 
while  accomplishing  their  pious  journey,  have  done  at  the  same  time 
considerable  geographical  work:  Hiuen  Tsang,  to  name  the  most 
famous  among  them,  not  only  takes  a  place  in  China  with  the 
most  revered  personages  of  his  church,  but  stands  in  the  foremost 
ranks  of  the  great  Asiatic  travelers,  by  the  side  of  the  illustrious 
Venetian  Marco  Polo.  However,  it  was  not  until  1410,  under  the 
Ming  Dynasty,  that  the  Chinese  obtained  at  last  possession  of  the 
full  canon  of  Buddhist  Books  which  serves  to  millions  of  adherents 
in  the  Far  East  as  a  guide  for  their  conduct. 

From  Central  Asia,  Buddhism  spread  to  China;  from  China,  as 
early  as  372,  it  entered  Korea,  and  thence  in  552  passed  on  to  Japan. 
In  the  mean  time  it  had  been  introduced  in  407  to  Tibet,  where  after 
being  severely  persecuted,  it  has  achieved  its  greatest  triumphs, 
the  King  of  Tibet,  Srongtsan  Gampo,  having  been  converted  to  the 
new  faith  by  his  Chinese  and  Nepalese  wives  (640) .  With  its  doctrine 
Buddhism  carried  along  everywhere  this  subtle  art  which  had  felt  the 
influence  of  the  ancient  Greeks,  brought  to  the  banks  of  the  Indus  by 
the  companions  of  Alexander  the  Great.  From  the  fourth  to  the 
eleventh  century,  that  is  to  say,  between  the  beginning  of  the  inroads 
of  the  Indo-Scyths  and  the  Mohammedan  Conquest  of  India,  during 
the  Buddhist  Middle  Ages,  the  Graeco-Buddhist  art  was  in  a  highly 
flourishing  state  and  its  influence  spread  to  the  Far  East. 

However,  in  paying  a  just  tribute  to  this  delicate  and  charming  art 
which  played  so  important  a  part  in  the  artistic  development  of  the 
Far  East,  it  would  be  unfair  not  to  mention  that  the  Chinese,  previ- 
ously to  its  introduction  in  their  empire,  had  a  national  art,  not 
despicable  in  the  least  degree  — witness  this  fourth  century  picture  of 
Ku  K'ai-che,  described  by  Chinese  historians,  happily  discovered  and 
rescued  at  Pe-king  during  the  events  of  1900,  and  now  kept  safely 
in  the  British  Museum,  forever  we  hope.' 

Buddhism,  now  one  of  the  three  state  religions  in  China,  after 
suffering  persecutions  in  Japan  from  the  hands  of  Nobunaga  in  the 
course  of  the  sixteenth  century,  somewhat  somnolent  for  many  years, 
is  at  present  in  a  period  of  magnificent  renaissance  in  the  Empire  of 
the  Rising  Sun,  where  the  labors  of  Bunyiu  Nanjio  and  of  Takakusu 
secure  for  it  an  important  place.  Many  Japanese  scholars,  fascinated 
by  the  doctrines  of  evolution,  think  these  are  to  be  found  in  Buddhism. 

Christianity  spread  at  first  in  Central  Asia  under  the  form  of 
Manicheism  and  of  Nestorianism;  only  recently  the  Mo-ni,  lost 
among  the  numerous  religious  sects  mentioned  by  Chinese  historians, 
have  been  with  some  degree  of  certainty  identified  with  the  disciples 
of  Manichee,  who  played  but  a  small  part  compared  with  that  of  the 
»  Cf.  Burlington  Magazine,  January,  1904;  T'aung-pas,  July,  1904. 


HISTORY  OF   ASIA  — GENERAL  SURVEY  91 

Nestorians  arrived  in  China  in  the  seventh  century,  as  the  celebrated 
inscription  of  781  discovered  in  1625  at  Si-ngan-fu,  capital  of  the 
Shen-si  Province,  testifies.  Under  the  Mongol  Dynasty  of  Chinguiz 
Khan,  in  the  course  of  the  thirteenth  century,  Nestorians  through 
Tangut  and  Central  Asia,  from  KhanbaUq  (Pe-king)  to  Bagdad,  held 
an  unbroken  line  of  archbishops  and  bishops;  the  innumerable 
stones  which  cover  their  graves,  especially  in  the  province  of  Samirie- 
thie,  bear  witness  to  the  number  and  importance  of  these  Nestorians. 

From  the  time  of  St.  Louis  and  the  meeting  of  a  Council  at  Lyons, 
we  trace  the  great  progress  of  the  Missions  of  the  Roman  Church. 
The  CathoUc  world  of  Central  and  Western  Europe  was  full  of  zeal 
for  the  propagation  of  the  Gospel  in  Asia,  where  the  somewhat 
mythical  Christian  prince  known  under  the  name  of  Prester  John 
lived,  and  cherished  also  the  hope  to  oppose  invading  Islam  wdth  a 
barrier  of  Mongol  tribes.  Hence  the  missions  of  the  Franciscan 
brother  John  of  Piano  Carpini,  sent  in  1245  by  Pope  Innocent 
IV  to  the  camps  of  Batu  and  of  Cuyuk  Khan,  and  of  the  Dominican 
monk  William  of  Rubruk,  dispatched  by  the  King  of  France,  St. 
Louis,  in  1253,  to  the  court  of  the  Great  Khan  Mangu  at  Karakorum, 
whose  journeys  have  been  edited  with  so  much  skill  and  care  for  the 
Hakluyt  Society  by  our  President,  the  Hon.  William  W.  Rockhill. 
Missionaries  were  dispatched  to  Khanbaliq  (Pe-king) ,  to  the  Fu-Kien 
province,  to  Central  Asia,  and  bishoprics  were  created  at  Khanbaliq, 
at  Zaitun,  and  at  Ili-baliq.  All  these  missions  disappeared  in  the 
course  of  the  fourteenth  century,  either  destroyed  in  Central  Asia 
by  the  influx  of  Mohammedanism  or  on  account  of  the  accession  of 
the  Ming  Dynasty  to  the  throne  of  China  in  1368. 

Missionaries  returned  to  China  only  in  1579,  but  the  evangeliza- 
tion in  this  country  was  in  truth  the  work  of  the  Jesuit  Fathers 
and  especially  of  the  celebrated  Matteo  Ricci,  who  died  at  Pe-king 
in  1610.  Christianity,  which  was  very  flourishing  in  the  seventeenth 
century,  soon  declined,  owing  to  the  petty  quarrels  between  religious 
orders,  and  the  bull  of  Benedict  XIV,  Ex  quo  singulari,  dealt  to  the 
missions  a  death-blow  in  1742,  as  it  proscribed  the  liberal  doctrines 
advocated  by  the  Jesuits  in  the  worship  paid  by  the  natives  to  Con- 
fucius and  to  their  ancestors. 

Protestant  missions  in  China  are  of  a  far  more  recent  origin;  they 
do  not  go  back  further  than  the  beginning  of  the  nineteenth  century, 
when  the  famous  Dr.  Robert  Morrison,  author  of  a  great  Chinese 
Dictionary,  sent  by  the  London  Missionary  Society,  arrived  at 
Canton  in  1807.  The  number  of  missionaries  is  now  very  great, 
and  many  of  them  are  American.  I  may  recall  among  them  the 
names  of  two  distinguished  sinologues:  Elijah  Coleman  Bridgman, 
of  Connecticut,  and  Samuel  Wells  Williams,  of  New  York,  who  was 
several  times  charge  d'affaires  of  the  United  States  at  Pe-king. 


92  HISTORY  OF  GREECE,  ROME,   AND  ASIA 

In  spite  of  the  zeal,  the  activity,  and  the  devotion  displayed  by 
both  Catholic  and  Protestant  missionaries,  we  cannot  say  that  their 
success  in  China  has  been  considerable  or  their  action  deep.  The 
Chinaman  is  not  hostile  to  Christianity;  he  is  indifferent;  he  finds  in 
the  moral  system  of  his  great  sage,  Confucius,  the  precepts  which 
guide  him  in  private  and  public  life;  he  takes  in  the  doctrines  of 
Buddha,  the  practices  of  Taoism,  the  superstitions  of  Feng-shui, 
all  that  is  necessary  to  him  in  the  question  of  religion.  Christianity 
is  still  for  the  Chinaman  a  foreign  religion,  the  superiority  of  which 
has  not  been  made  so  clear  to  his  eyes  as  to  induce  him  to  adopt  it 
as  a  matter  of  course;  and  though  the  religion  of  Christ  met  with 
almost  unrestricted  success  among  the  pagan  nations  forming  the  old 
Roman  Empire,  or  amid  the  wild  tribes  of  modern  Africa,  Oceania, 
and  America,  it  has  entirely  failed  with  the  Far  Eastern  peoples,  indif- 
ferent or  atheist.  If  I  dared  say  what  I  think,  I  should  add  that  the 
destruction  of  Chinese  society  as  it  exists  at  present  could  alone 
secure  the  triumph  of  Christianity,  and  the  literati  understand  this 
so  well  that  they,  and  not  the  people,  are  hostile  to  its  spread. 

Though  the  number  of  the  followers  of  Islam  in  China  be  far  in- 
ferior to  that  of  the  Buddhists,  the  disciples  of  Mohammed  have 
nevertheless  played  a  considerable  part  in  the  Middle  Kingdom. 

The  Arabs  called  Ta-zi  were  known  to  the  Chinese,  who  mention 
them  in  the  annals  of  the  T'ang  Dynasty  (618-907),  through  Persia, 
the  name  of  which  appears  for  the  first  time  in  the  Chinese  annals 
(461)  in  connection  with  an  embassy  sent  to  the  court  of  the  Wei 
sovereigns.  During  the  eighth  century  the  Bagdad  Abbassides  and 
their  celebrated  Khalif  Harun  ar-Rashid  joined  with  the  Uigurs  and 
the  Chinese  against  the  Tibetans,  their  common  enemy.  A  fact  inter- 
esting to  note,  is  the  presence  of  Ta-zi  in  the  kingdom  of  Nan-Chao, 
a  part  of  the  actual  Yun-nan  Province,  as  early  as  801. 

The  Arabs  built  at  Canton  a  large  mosque,  which  was  burnt  down 
in  758.  In  the  course  of  the  following  century,  in  875,  the  Mohamme- 
dans transferred  their  business  from  Canton  to  the  Malay  Peninsula, 
at  Kalah,  which  inherited  the  commercial  importance  of  Ceylon  in  the 
sixth  century.  Western  visitors  at  the  court  of  the  Mongol  Khans 
mention  a  number  of  high  Mussulman  dignitaries.  We  shall  see  that 
in  the  eighteenth  century  K'ien-lung  annexed  to  his  empire  the 
T'ien-Shan,  part  of  the  share  of  Jagatai  in  the  inheritance  of  his 
father,  Chinguiz  Khan.  Without  going  into  the  particulars  of  the 
rebelUons  which  devastated  Central  Asia,  we  shall  recall  that  in 
1864,  a  soldier  of  fortune,  Yakub,  captured  Kashgar  and  the  other 
towns  south  of  the  T'ien-Shan,  thus  creating  a  Mohammedan  power 
in  Northwestern  China  between  the  possessions  newly  acquired  by 
the  Russians  after  the  storming  of  Tashkant  (June  27,  1865)  and 


HISTORY  OF   ASIA  — GENERAL   SURVEY  93 

the  Anglo-Indian  Empire.  For  some  time,  Yakub  was  the  undis- 
puted and  redoubtable  sovereign  of  a  real  empire,  with  Yarkand  as 
a  capital.  England  dispatched  to  Yakub  special  missions  with  Sir 
Douglas  Forsyth  at  their  head  in  1870  and  in  1873;  in  1872  the 
Russian  staff-colonel  Baron  Kaulbars  signed  a  treaty  of  commerce 
with  the  Mohammedan  potentate.  Yakub's  rule  was  ephemeral  and 
ended  with  him  when  he  died  on  the  29th  of  May,  1877;  in  fact, 
the  Chinese  general  Tso  Tsung-tang  had  subdued  a  great  part  of  his 
territory,  the  conquest  of  which  he  completed  after  the  death  of  the 
Ameer, 

Another  outburst  of  the  Mohammedans,  caused  by  a  quarrel  be- 
tween miners  of  different  creeds  and  conflicting  interests,  took  place 
about  1855  in  Southwestern  China,  in  the  Yun-nan  Province,  and  it 
led  to  the  creation  of  a  sultanate  at  Ta-li,  which  lasted  till  the  cap- 
ture of  this  stronghold  by  the  Chinese  Imperial  troops  on  the  15th 
of  January,  1873. 

China,  which  is  the  main  subject  treated  of  in  this  general  view, 
was  in  fact  isolated  only  in  the  ancient  times  of  her  history,  when  her 
territory,  watered  by  the  Yellow  River,  hardly  extended  beyond  the 
right  bank  of  the  Yang-tse  Kiang.  From  the  fourteenth  century 
the  land  route  to  China  was  closed,  and  the  foreigners  who  arrived 
by  sea  at  the  beginning  of  the  sixteenth  could  at  Canton  only 
hold  any  intercourse  with  the  Chinese,  who  got  their  scanty  infor- 
mation about  distant  lands  from  the  Canton  merchants  and  the 
missionaries  submerged  in  the  enormous  mass  of  the  empire.  The 
Cossacks  who  came  from  the  north  in  the  sixteenth  and  seventeenth 
centuries  added  little  or  rather  nothing  to  this  knowledge.  It  seems 
paradoxical,  but  it  is  nevertheless  exact  to  say  that  China  was  opened 
to  Western  civilization  and  influence  by  the  British  gun.  In  the  Middle 
Ages,  China  had  the  benefit  of  some  extraneous  ideas  through  Buddh- 
ism imported  from  India  and  through  the  Mongols  who  served  as  a 
link  between  Europe  and  Asia.  China  herself  broke  her  own  bounds ; 
like  the  Persian  and  Arab  merchants  visiting  her  ports,  her  own 
traders  penetrated  to  the  farthest  extremity  of  the  Persian  Gulf. 
At  different  times  she  held  Annam  in  bondage;  she  tried  to  conquer 
Burmah  and  Japan,  but  failed;  her  influence  was  all-powerful  in 
Korea,  and  she  carried  on  her  explorations  to  the  Islands  of  Sunda, 
which  soon  became  one  of  the  favorite  spots  of  her  emigration. 

With  the  Chinese  Dynasty  of  the  Ming,  which  replaced  in  1368 
the  Mongol  rule  in  the  Middle  Kingdom,  China  assumes  the  definite 
form  under  which  she  is  known  henceforward  to  the  foreigner.  The 
Manchu  Conquest  in  1644  brings  a  fresh  element  into  the  country, 
but  the  new-comers  are  soon  absorbed;  they  add  to  the  Chinese 
Empire  the  land  from  which  they  come  and  which  constitutes  to-day 


94  HISTORY  OF   GREECE,   ROME,   AND   ASIA 

the  northeast  region  of  the  Empire,  the  actual  theatre  of  the  strug- 
gle between  Russia  and  Japan, 

With  the  annexation  of  the  T'ien-Shan  by  the  Emperor  K'ien-lung 
in  1759  and  the  seizure  by  this  prince  of  the  temporal  government 
of  Tibet,  the  Chinese  Empire  reached  the  boundaries  which  it  has 
retained  until  recent  years.  It  is  not  speaking  mth  disparagement 
or  injustice  to  say  that  the  Emperors  K'ang-hi  and  K'ien-lung  in 
the  seventeenth  and  eighteenth  centuries  were  in  every  respect 
equal  or  even  superior  to  most  of  the  contemporary  princes.  It  is 
hardly  possible  to  recognize  as  the  heirs  of  these  great  men  sover- 
eigns like  Kia-K'ing,  Tao-Kwang,  and  specially  the  stupid  and  cruel 
Hien-Fung  (died  1861). 

With  the  exception  of  the  creation  of  a  Great  Council  and  the 
superposition  of  Manchu  dignitaries  upon  Chinese  functionaries,  the 
Chinese  administration  stands  unchanged,  and  the  moral  precepts 
of  Confucius  continue  to  guide  the  conduct  of  all  the  Chinese  from 
the  lowest  of  the  people  up  to  the  Son  of  Heaven.  The  era  of  inven- 
tions is  closed,  the  fine  literary  productions  of  the  T'ang  period,  and 
the  great  philosophical  works  of  the  Sung  Dynasty  do  not  find  any 
equivalent  during  the  next  centuries.  China  did  not  see,  and  will  not 
see  anything;  her  glance  did  not  extend  beyond  the  seas,  nor  even 
beyond  her  Great  Wall;  she  shut  herself  up,  and  living,  so  to  speak, 
on  her  own  stock,  having  at  an  early  hour  reached  a  high  state  of 
civilization,  she  stopped  in  her  development.  In  some  manner  she 
became  "  crystalUzed, "  to  use  Stendhal's  expression,  and  during  this 
operation  other  nations  have  grown,  have  surpassed  her,  have  inter- 
fered with  her  peaceful  existence,  thus  awakening  her  in  her  sleep, 
compelling  her  to  abandon  her  voluntary  isolation  and  to  accept 
a  promiscuity  which  is  particularly  distasteful  and  odious  to  her. 

The  decline  of  China  coincides  with  the  efforts  of  the  Western 
Powers  to  break  her  doors  open.  Until  the  middle  of  the  nineteenth 
century,  with  the  exception  of  a  few  Catholic  missionaries  retained 
as  savants  at  the  court  of  Pe-king  or  hidden  in  the  provinces,  where 
they  led  a  precarious  existence,  foreigners  were  lodged  in  a  quarter  of 
the  single  port  of  Canton  without  the  right  of  moving  freely  about 
the  city;  moreover,  they  could  only  stay  at  the  place  the  time 
strictly  necessary  to  the  settlement  of  their  affairs,  that  is  to  say, 
during  a  pretty  short  portion  of  the  year;  afterguards  they  had  to 
return  to  the  Portuguese  Colony  of  Macao,  where  lived  their  families, 
who  were  not  allowed  to  accompany  the  cargoes  to  the  Chinese  port. 
Business  was  not  conducted  freely  with  the  natives,  but  through  the 
medium  of  privileged  merchants,  called  hong  merchants,  whose  mono- 
poly was  finally  abolished  by  the  fifth  article  of  the  treaty  signed  at 
Nanking  by  England  August  29,  1842.    Wanton  vexations  were  in- 


HISTORY  OF   ASIA  — GENERAL  SURVEY  95 

flicted  upon  foreigners;  it  was  forbidden  to  the  natives  to  teach  their 
language  to  any  "  Western  Devil  "  (Yang-kwei-tse) ;  the  lex  tali- 
onis,  man  for  man,  was  applied  with  all  its  cruelty  and  injustice. 

This  state  of  things  lasted  till  the  Opium  War,  which  gave  Eng- 
land the  means  of  opening  China  more  widely  to  the  foreign  trade 
and  of  making  the  way  for  the  introduction  of  Western  ideas,  with- 
out abating,  however,  the  arrogant  pretensions  of  the  mandarins. 

In  the  course  of  the  sixteenth  century  began  the  double  march 
toward  China,  by  the  north  and  the  south,  by  land  and  by  sea, 
which  brought  into  contact  the  nations  of  the  Occident  and  those  of 
the  Far  East.  Ermak's  Cossacks  were  the  pioneers  of  the  northern 
route,  Vasco  da  Gama's  sailors  and  Albuquerque's  soldiers  were  the 
pilots  and  the  conquerors  of  the  southern  route. 

To  the  Portuguese  we  owe  the  discovery,  or  more  exactly  the 
reopening,  of  the  road  of  Asia  in  modern  times.  The  cape  dis- 
covered by  Bartholomew  Diaz  in  1485,  doubled  by  Vasco  da  Gama 
in  1497,  was  the  great  port  of  call  from  Europe  to  Asia,  until  the 
ancient  way  of  Egypt  was  resumed  during  the  nineteenth  century. 
Masters  of  the  Indian  Ocean,  the  capture  of  Malacca  in  1511,  their 
first  voyage  to  Canton  in  1514,  a  wreck  in  1542  at  Tanegashima,  in 
the  Japanese  Archipelago,  gave  to  the  Portuguese  the  possession 
of  an  immense  empire  and  the  control  of  an  enormous  trade  which 
they  were  not  able  to  keep.  The  annexation  of  Portugal  to  Spain, 
"The  Sixty  Years'  Captivity,"  under  Philip  the  Second,  was  as 
harmful  to  the  first,  drawn  by  its  conqueror  into  a  struggle  fatal 
for  her  prosperity,  as  was  to  the  Dutch  colonies  the  absorption  of 
Holland  by  Napoleon  I. 

The  Spaniards  settled  in  the  Philippine  Islands;  the  Dutch,  with 
the  enterprising  Cornelius  Houtman,  landed  in  1596  at  Bantam, 
created  the  short-lived  colony  of  Formosa,  and  a  lasting  empire 
in  the  Sunda  Islands,  where  in  1619  they  laid  the  foundations  of  the 
town  of  Batavia,  on  the  ruins  of  the  old  native  port  of  Jacatra. 

However,  one  may  say  that  England  really  opened  Eastern  Asia 
to  foreign  influence,  at  least  by  sea,  from  the  day  in  1634  when  the 
gun  of  Captain  Weddell  thundered  for  the  first  time  in  the  Canton 
River.  It  was  with  the  accompaniment  of  British  powder  that  during 
two  centuries  the  countries  of  the  Far  East  carried  on  trade  with  the 
Western  merchants.  It  was  on  sea,  and  of  course  by  the  south,  that 
England  fought  for  the  supremacy  in  Asia. 

A  terrible  struggle  in  India  against  the  French,  where  Clive  and 
Hastings  got  the  benefit  of  the  labors  and  exertions  of  Francois  Martin, 
Dumas,  Dupleix,  and  others,  three  wars  against  the  Mahrats,  the 
conquest  of  the  Punjab,  the  crushing  of  the  great  rebellion  of  1858, 
the  suppression  of  the  Empire  of  the  Great  Mogul,  have  secured  to 


96  HISTORY  OF  GREECE,   ROME,   AND  ASIA 

Great  Britain  the  possession  of  the  Indies,  threatened  only  as  of  yore 
by  the  northwestern  invaders.  Three  lucky  campaigns  have  given 
Burmah  to  England,  already  master  of  the  greater  part  of  the  Malay 
Peninsula. 

The  treaty  signed  by  Great  Britain  at  Nanking  in  August,  1842, 
broke  up  the  Chinese  barrier;  the  various  Powers  followed  in  emula- 
tion the  example  of  England;  the  United  States,  France,  Belgium, 
Sweden  and  Norway,  by  turn  signed  treaties  or  conventions  with 
the  Son  of  Heaven.  At  that  time  England  was  truly  without  a  rival 
in  the  Far  East,  but  was  not  far-sighted  enough;  the  pledge  she  took 
at  Hong  Kong,  important  as  it  was,  was  but  a  small  one  with  regard 
to  the  hopes  of  the  future.  England  gave  back  to  the  Chinese  the 
Chusan  Islands,  which  had  been  in  her  hands,  as  the  French  returned 
the  Pescadores  after  the  settlement  of  the  Tonquin  question;  of 
course,  loyal  and  honest  acts,  but  also  acts  of  improvident  politics. 

To-day  England  has  lost  the  unique  situation  she  held  sixty  years 
ago.  In  all  the  peoples  of  the  world,  she  has  found  eager  competitors 
anxious  to  share  with  her  the  prey  of  which  for  a  long  time  she 
was  alone  covetous,  alone  capable  of  making  the  necessary  effort  to 
grasp  it  firmly. 

France,  which  had  formerly  but  a  moral  interest  in  the  Far  East, 
that  of  the  Catholic  missions,  has  now  a  solid  ground  of  action,  as 
a  consequence  of  the  conquest  she  made  of  the  oriental  part  of  Indo- 
China,  while  England  subdued  the  western  coast  of  this  peninsula. 

The  colonization  or  the  conquest  by  European  nations  tends  to 
diminish,  to  restrict,  and  especially  to  modify  in  Indo-China  the 
effect  of  the  pacific  or  military  invasions  of  Hindus  and  of  the  Sons 
of  Han.  The  struggle  in  Indo-China  is  limited  to-day  to  two  cham- 
pions; the  Chinese  and  the  foreigner,  wherever  he  comes  from  — 
England,  France,  or  even  Japan.  The  native,  capable  of  slight  or 
passive  resistance  only,  will  have  in  the  scale  but  the  weight  of  his 
master,  who  may  not  be  of  his  own  choice. 

However,  the  two  facts  dominating  the  political  history  of  the  Far 
East  during  the  last  fifty  years  are  the  spread  of  the  Russian  power 
through  Asia  on  the  one  hand,  and  the  revolution  and  the  trans- 
formation of  the  Japanese  Empire  on  the  other. 

During  the  reign  of  Ivan  IV,  in  the  middle  of  the  sixteenth  cen- 
tury, to  the  east  of  the  Ural  Mountains  began  this  tremendous 
march  of  the  Russians  which  drove  them  beyond  the  sea,  since  the 
authority  of  the  Tsar  was  formerly  extended  to  this  side  of  the 
Straits  of  Behring;  indeed,  it  was  but  in  1867  that  the  Russian 
possessions  in  America,  Alaska,  were  acquired  by  the  United  States. 
The  unification  of  the  states  of  Great  Russia,  the  conquest  of  the 
Tartar  Kingdoms  of  Kazan  (1552)  and  of  Astrakhan  (1554),  removed 


HISTORY  OF   ASIA  — GENERAL  SURVEY  97 

the  boundaries  of  Russia  to  the  east;  the  Russian  advance  to  the 
Baltic  had  been  stopped  by  the  victories  of  Stephen  Bathory;  the 
East  only  was  left  open  to  their  enterprise. 

In  1558  a  certain  Gregori  Strogonov  obtained  from  the  Tsar  the 
cession  of  the  wild  lands  on  the  Kama  River.  With  some  companions 
he  settled  in  that  region,  created  colonies,  and  some  of  the  hardy 
fellows  went  as  far  as  the  Ural  Mountains.  An  adventurous  Cossack 
of  the  Don,  Ermak  Timofeevitch,  whose  services  had  been  secured  by 
Strogonov,  crossed  the  Ural  Mountains  at  the  head  of  eight  hundred 
and  fifty  plucky  men,  and  advanced  as  far  as  the  Irtysh  and  Ob  rivers, 
on  the  way  subduing  the  Tartar  princes.  Ermak  was  the  real  con- 
queror of  Western  Siberia,  but  if  he  had  the  luck  and  the  glory  of 
adding  a  new  kingdom  to  the  states  of  the  prince  who  has  been  sur- 
named  the  Terrible,  to  his  immediate  successors  was  due  the  founda- 
tion of  the  first  town  in  the  territory  snatched  from  the  Tartars,  for 
Ermak  was  drowned  in  the  Irtysh  in  1584,  and  Tobolsk  dates  only 
from  1587.  The  effort  of  the  Russians  was  then  directed  to  the  north 
of  Siberia;  they  did  not  meet  with  any  resistance  until  they  reached 
the  Lena  River;  in  1632  they  built  the  fort  of  Yakutsk  on  the  banks 
of  this  river,  and  pushed  their  explorations  on  to  the  sea  of  Okhotsk. 
In  1636  tidings  of  the  Amoor  River  were  for  the  first  time  heard 
from  Cossacks  of  Tomsk,  who  had  made  raids  to  the  south. 

Vasili  Poyarkov  (1643-46)  is  the  first  Russian  who  navigated  the 
Amoor  from  its  junction  with  the  Zeia  to  its  mouth.  In  1643-51, 
Khabarov  led  an  expedition  in  the  course  of  which  he  built  on  the 
banks  of  the  river  several  forts,  Albasine  among  them.  In  1654, 
Stepanov  for  the  first  time  ascended  the  Sungari,  where  he  met 
the  Chinese,  who  compelled  him  to  trace  his  way  back  to  the  Amoor. 
In  spite  of  all  their  exertions,  after  two  sieges  of  Albasine  by  the 
Chinese,  the  Russians  were  obliged  on  the  27th  of  August,  1689, 
to  sign  at  Nerchinsk  a  treaty  by  which  they  were  driven  out  of  the 
basin  of  the  Amoor. 

The  Russians,  bound  to  carry  their  efforts  to  the  north,  subdued 
Kamchatka.  What  is  perhaps  most  remarkable  in  the  history  of 
the  relations  of  the  two  great  Asiatic  empires  is  the  tenacity  of  the 
Muscovite  grappling  with  the  cunning  of  the  Chinese,  and  the  com- 
parison between  the  starting-point  of  these  relations,  the  Russia 
of  Michael  and  Alexis  and  the  China  of  K'ang-hi,  and  their  culminat- 
ing-point  in  1860,  when  these  very  nations  shall  have  passed,  one 
through  the  iron  hands  of  Peter  the  Great  and  become  the  Russia 
of  Alexander  II,  and  the  other  under  the  backward  government  of 
Kia-K'ing  and  Tao-kwang  and  become  the  China  of  their  feeble  suc- 
cessor Hien-Fung.  Only  on  the  18th  of  May,  1854,  did  the  Governor- 
General  Muraviev  navigate  again  the  waters  of  the  Amoor  River;  on 
the  16th  of  May,  1858,  he  signed  at  Aigun  a  treaty  which  made  the 


98  HISTORY  OF  GREECE,  ROME,   AND   ASIA 

Amoor  until  its  junction  with  the  Usuri  the  boundary  between  the 
Russian  and  Chinese  Empires,  the  territory  between  the  Usuri  and 
the  sea  remaining  in  the  joint  possession  of  the  two  Powers,  but 
after  the  Pe-king  Convention  (2-14  November,  1860)  this  land  was 
abandoned  to  Russia  and  the  Usuri  became  the  boundary.  In  the 
mean  time,  the  treaty  signed  at  T'ien-tsin  by  Admiral  Euthymus 
Putiatin  (1-13  June,  1858)  secured  for  Russia  all  the  advantages 
gained  by  France  and  England  after  the  occupation  of  Canton  and 
the  capture  of  the  Taku  forts. 

The  second  Russian  move  had  Central  Asia  as  its  aim;  it  was  the 
result  of  the  foundation  of  the  town  of  Orenburg,  the  exploration  of 
the  Syr-Daria  by  Batiakov,  the  building  of  Kazalinsk  (1848)  near 
the  mouth  of  this  river;  the  unsuccessful  effort  of  General  Perovsky 
(1839)  turned  the  enterprise  of  the  Russians  to  the  Khanate  of  Kho- 
kand;  the  storming  of  Tashkend  by  Colonel  Chernaiev  on  the  27th  of 
June,  1865,  was  the  crowning  point  of  the  conquest  of  Turkestan  by 
the  Russians.  The  road  to  the  T'ien-Shan  had  already  been  opened 
to  the  Russians  by  the  treaty  signed  at  Kulja  (July  25-August  8, 
1851)  by  Colonel  Kovalevsky,  which,  however,  was  known  only  ten 
years  later  (28  February-11  March,  1861). 

While  Yakub  Bey  had  founded,  as  already  seen,  a  Mohammedan 
Empire  in  the  T'ien-Shan  Nan  Lu,  the  Russians  took  possession 
of  the  Hi  Territory  on  the  4th  of  July,  1871.  The  retrocession  of 
this  territory  to  China  after  the  death  of  the  Attalik  Ghazi  was  the 
cause  of  long  and  difficult  negotiations  between  Russia  and  China, 
which  ended  with  the  treaties  of  Livadia  (October,  1879)  and  of 
St.  Petersburg  (February  12-24,  1881).  Russia  restored  the  lands 
which  she  detained  illegitimately,  keeping,  however,  a  small  portion, 
not  the  least  valuable  of  the  lot. 

The  third  Russian  move  was  aimed  at  the  countries  beyond  the 
Caspian  Sea,  and  was  the  result  of  the  conquest  of  the  Crimea  by 
Potemkin  in  the  name  of  the  great  Catherine,  and  of  the  treaty  of 
Kutschuk  Quainardji  (1774),  which  gave  to  the  Russians  the  free 
navigation  of  the  Black  Sea.  Under  the  reign  of  Nicholas  I, 
Putiatin  established  a  permanent  maritime  station  on  the  Island  of 
Akurade  in  the  Gulf  of  Astrabad,  and  a  line  of  ships  on  the  Caspian 
Sea,  securing  from  the  Persian  Government  facilities  for  Russian 
fishermen  and  traders  on  the  southern  coast  of  that  sea. 

At  last,  in  1869,  Russia  took  a  definite  position  on  the  eastern  coast 
of  the  Caspian  Sea  in  settling  at  Krasnovodsk.  Later  on  the  break-up 
of  the  Turkish  barrier  of  Geok-tepe  by  Skobelev,  the  occupation  of 
the  Oasis  of  Merv  by  Alikhanov,  the  capture  of  Samarkand,  made 
of  the  Transcaspian  country  a  Russian  possession,  rendered  Russian 
influence  paramount  in  the  north  of  Persia,  and  threatened  Herat  and 
the  route  of  India.   The  railway  which  the  ingenuity  and  tenacity  of 


HISTORY  OF   ASIA  — GENERAL  SURVEY  99 

Annenkov  threw  across  the  burning  desert,  united  the  Caspian  Sea  to 
Bokhara  and  Samarkand,  crossing  the  Oxus  at  Charjui.  The  continu- 
ation of  this  railway  from  Samarkand  to  Tashkend  and  the  Siberian 
line  was  to  place  the  whole  of  Asia  beyond  the  Ural  Mountains  and 
the  Caspian  Sea  in  the  hands  of  the  Russians. 

It  seems  as  if  nothing  could  put  a  stop  to  this  expansion;  on  the 
contrary,  the  bold  and  rapid  construction  of  a  railway  across  the 
frozen  steppes  of  Siberia  was  to  unite  Russia  directly  with  the  Far 
East  by  an  unbroken  chain;  the  ports  of  Manchuria  and  Korea, 
watered  by  the  seas  of  China  and  Japan,  being  considered  the  termini 
of  the  long  line. 

Work  on  the  western  part  of  the  Siberian  Railway  began  on  July  7, 
1892,  Its  extension  beyond  the  Baikal  Lake  was  to  take  it  on  the 
one  hand  to  Vladivostock  at  the  eastern  extremity  of  the  Russian 
possessions  in  Asia,  and  on  the  other  to  Port  Arthur  in  the  south 
of  the  Liao-tung  Peninsula.  It  was  fair  to  think  that  the  point 
where  the  two  lines  met,  in  the  very  heart  of  Manchuria,  should  be- 
come a  most  important  centre  of  industry  and  population;  indeed, 
this  has  been  realized,  and  in  a  few  years,  in  the  place  of  a  barren 
spot,  the  considerable  town  of  Kharbin  (Harbin)  has  been  built  in 
the  twinkling  of  an  eye,  so  to  speak. 

Russia  weighs  with  its  enormous  mass  on  the  Asiatic  Continent  like 
a  gigantic  polyp,  whose  head  and  body  press  on  Siberia  and  Central 
Asia,  with  tentacles  stretching  toward  Korea,  Manchuria,  Mongolia, 
Tibet,  Afghanistan,  Persia,  Asia  Minor,  ready  to  close  them  on  the 
prey  which  she  encircles,  and  which  is  disputed  to  her  by  other 
nations  anxious  to  take  their  share  of  the  plunder,  thus  creating 
a  permanent  state  of  uneasiness  throughout  the  Continent. 

While  Russia  was  making  this  enormous  extension  in  the  northwest 
of  Asia,  Japan  was  pursuing  the  series  of  reforms  which  were  to 
secure  for  her  a  very  special  position  in  the  concert  of  the  nations  of 
the  world.  Previous  to  the  revolution  of  1868,  which  altered  entirely 
the  state  of  things  in  Japan,  a  real  duality  in  the  government  existed 
in  this  country;  while  the  Tenno,  or  Mikado,  the  only  Emperor, 
reigned  nominally  at  Kioto,  the  power  was  held  in  fact  by  the  Shogun, 
a  sort  of  Mayor  of  the  Palace,  residing  at  Yedo.  From  lyeyas,  at  the 
beginning  of  the  seventeenth  century,  who  gave  to  feodality  the 
definitive  constitution  which  lasted  to  our  days,  the  power  remained 
in  his  house,  that  of  Tokugawa.  The  foreigners  who  landed  in  Japan 
in  the  sixteenth  and  the  beginning  of  the  seventeenth  century  — 
Portuguese  and  English  —  were  expelled  in  1637,  and  by  the  end  of 
1639  the  Dutch  and  the  Chinese  were  the  only  outsiders  allowed  to 
live  on  the  islet  of  Deshima,  in  the  Bay  of  Nagasaki,  in  order  to  supply 
the  Japanese  with  the  goods  they  required. 


100         HISTORY  OF  GREECE,  ROME,  AND   ASIA 

This  state  of  things,  notwithstanding  the  attempts  vainly  made 
by  Great  Britain  and  Russia  during  the  first  years  of  the  nineteenth 
century,  was  to  last  until  the  arrival  of  the  American  Commodore 
Matthew  Calbraith  Perry,  who  in  July,  1853,  anchored  at  Uraga 
at  the  entrance  of  the  Bay  of  Yedo,  and  who  signed  on  March  31, 
1854,  at  Kanagawa,  the  first  treaty  concluded  between  Japan  and 
a  foreign  power. 

Was  the  revolution  of  1868  for  Japan  but  one  of  the  numerous 
crises  which  troubled  its  already  long  and  not  too  serene  existence? 
Was  it  a  mere  accident  for  that  country,  progressing  by  jumps 
and  bounds  and  not  by  evolution?  or  was  it  the  starting-point  of 
a  civiUzation  copied  from  that  of  Europe?  Has  she  covered  only  the 
old  culture  of  Yamato  with  a  superficial  varnish?  Has  she  completely 
destroyed  it  to  replace  it  by  a  new  one?  I  greatly  doubt  it,  or  rather 
I  do  not  believe  it,  as  it  cannot  be  that  in  some  fifty  years  a  radical 
transformation  can  reach  the  deeper  layers  of  the  population.  The 
Japanese  obey  two  motives  in  their  warlike  undertakings;  one  is 
dictated  by  a  tradition  of  war,  by  an  unsurpassed  bravery  of  which 
they  have  given  undeniable  proofs  for  centuries;  the  other  by  reasons 
of  a  purely  economic  order.  Japan  is  at  heart  a  warlike  nation;  in 
every  man  of  Nippon,  the  soul  of  a  samurai  is  asleep.  No,  a  people 
cannot  be  modified  in  a  few  years. 

Japan  has  behind  her  a  past  of  struggles,  heroism,  and  art,  with 
very  little  original  literature.  Endowed  with  the  genius  of  application 
more  than  with  that  of  invention,  with  no  great  commercial  aptitude, 
a  hero  or  a  pirate  according  to  circumstances,  full  of  imprSvu,  as  his 
tradition  borrowed  from  strangers  does  not  trace  to  him  a  firm  line 
of  conduct,  the  Japanese  lives  on  reminiscences  and  is,  above  all,  an 
imitator;  he  is  not  gifted  with  imagination;  an  artist  and  a  warrior, 
he  is  not  a  philosopher.  Does  he  give  us  now  more  than  the  appear- 
ance of  a  Western  civilization?  I  hope  so  for  the  sake  of  Japan  herself, 
as,  if  it  were  otherwise,  we  should  have  but  a  fragile  edifice  erected 
by  a  superficial  as  well  as  a  versatile  people.  What  an  interesting  and 
curious  sight  it  offers  to  the  gaze  of  the  observer  I 

In  the  midst  of  the  peoples  which  from  the  West  and  the  East 
rush  to  the  assault  of  the  Middle  Kingdom,  Japan  stands  as  a  young 
and  vigorous  power  which,  in  1868,  by  a  revolution  without  a  parallel 
in  the  history  of  mankind,  transformed  herself  from  a  nation  most 
hostile  to  foreign  intrusion  to  one  of  the  most  progressive  of  the 
globe.  We  may  seek  in  great  part  the  solution  of  the  Asiatic  pro- 
blem in  the  future  of  Japan,  which  acts  a  part  in  no  way  inferior  to 
that  of  the  Westerners,  and  which  finds  itself  to  be  the  stumbling- 
block  to  the  ambitious  designs  of  the  foreign  powers.  Will  Japan 
be  at  the  head  of  the  invaders  come  from  near  and  far,  as  at  Pe- 
king in  1900?    Will  she  be,  on  the  contrary,  having  galvanized  the 


HISTORY   OF   ASIA  — GENERAL   SURVEY  101 

old  man,  the  champion  of  the  Asiatic  World  to  repel  the  common 
enemy? 

It  is  fair  to  believe,  in  reviewing  the  history  of  the  past  and  in 
studying  the  various  aspects  of  present  pohtics,  that  Japan  would 
prefer  the  second  of  these  parts,  more  in  accordance  with  her  tra- 
ditions and  her  aspirations. 

It  is  evident  that  two  nations  in  full  progress,  operating  in  the 
same  field  of  action,  would  fatally  meet  some  day.  If  Russia  needs 
a  port  free  from  ice  in  the  Eastern  Sea,  Japan  has  a  no  less  imperi- 
ous necessity  of  finding  room  for  its  population  in  excess.  From  five 
thousand  four  hundred  and  forty-three  in  1880,  the  number  of  the 
Japanese  living  out  of  their  country  increased  in  1902  to  one  hun- 
dred and  thirty-nine  thousand  five  hundred  fifty-three,  scattered 
chiefly  between  Korea,  Canada,  the  United  States,  the  Hawaiian 
Islands,  etc. 

The  Treaty  of  Shimonoseki  (April  27, 1895) ,  signed  after  a  glorious 
war  with  China,  had  given  to  Japan  the  southern  portion  of  Man- 
churia, including  Port  Arthur.  The  triumph  of  the  Emperor  of  the 
Rising  Sun  made  of  an  Asiatic  potentate  like  the  Mikado  a  sovereign 
whose  voice  was  heard  in  the  whole  of  the  world;  from  a  local  power, 
Japan  took  rank  among  the  great  powers  of  the  globe.  In  the  con- 
quest of  Manchuria,  Germany,  France,  and  Russia  perceived  a  danger 
to  European  influence  in  the  Far  East,  and  by  a  convention  on  No- 
vember 8,  1895,  obtained  the  retrocession  of  Liao-tung  by  Japan  to 
China.  It  was  no  doubt  a  severe  wound  to  the  amour  propre  of  the 
victor. 

In  the  mean  time  Russia  continued  to  increase  her  means  of  action 
and  to  strengthen  her  position  in  the  Far  East  by  the  creation  at  the 
end  of  1895  of  the  Russo-Chinese  Bank,  by  conventions  regarding  the 
Manchurian  Railway,  and  by  the  signature  in  1896  at  St.  Petersburg 
by  the  Viceroy  Li  Hung-chang  of  a  treaty  still  secret. 

After  the  massacre  of  two  of  her  missionaries,  Germany  having 
taken  possession  of  Kiao-chow  on  November  14, 1897,  Russia  shortly 
after  obtained  the  cession  by  lease  of  Port  Arthur  (December,  1897). 
England,  in  gaining  a  settlement  at  Wei-Hai-Wei  and  France  at 
Kwang-chow-Wan,  seemed  to  begin  the  partition  of  the  Chinese 
Empire.  At  one  moment  the  old  Manchu  world  seemed  to  awaken 
to  the  danger;  at  one  moment  the  Emperor  Kwang-siu  had  no  doubt 
the  real  instinct  of  the  situation.  He  had  shown  dignity  and  bravery 
when  he  refused  to  fly  to  the  west,  as  was  suggested  to  him  by  his 
timorous  ministers  at  the  time  the  Japanese  threatened  his  capital 
in  1895. 

The  demands  of  the  foreigners  who  appeared  to  seek  the  dismem- 
berment of  the  Empire  and  threatened  to  make  a  new  Poland  of 


102         HISTORY  OF   GREECE,   ROME,   AND  ASIA 

China,  frightened  the  Manchu  monarch,  who  felt  strongly  —  in  so 
far  as  his  weakened  health  and  a  superior  will  allowed  —  the  wish 
to  transform  his  country.  It  was  but  a  flash  of  lightning  in  a  dark- 
ened horizon.  In  order  to  succeed,  it  would  have  been  necessary  for 
Kwang-siu  to  have  at  his  command,  with  his  handful  of  bold  but 
busy-body  reformers,  a  solid  army,  capable  of  preventing  a  reaction. 
But  this  army  was  lacking  to  the  Chinese  Emperor,  who  made  the 
generous  but  abortive  attempt  to  introduce  reforms  in  which  he 
lost  at  once  the  power  and  the  appearance  of  energy  which  he  had 
for  a  brief  period  displayed. 

On  June  10,  1898,  Kwang-siu  began  the  series  of  reforms,  the 
ephemeral  course  of  which  was  stopped  on  September  30  of  the 
same  year  by  the  Empress  Dowager,  the  reactionary  party,  with 
her,  retaking  the  power.  What  followed,  the  rebellion  of  the 
Boxers;  the  siege  of  the  foreign  Legations  at  Pe-king,  in  1900,  is 
fresh  in  the  memory  of  all.  It  is  but  just  to  note,  as  the  Japanese 
Prime  Minister,  Count  Katsura,  remarked  quite  recently,  that  during 
all  these  events  Japan  has  filled  her  duty  as  a  civilized  nation  by 
the  side  of  the  Western  Powers. 

The  causes  of  the  present  gigantic  struggle  appear  forcibly  to 
every  one's  eyes,  but  to  say  the  least,  the  place  to  discuss  them  is 
not  in  a  scientific  congress;  however,  it  is  not  forbidden  to  foresee 
some  of  its  results  and  the  effects  these  may  have  on  the  general 
politics  of  the  universe.  If  Japan  is  in  our  days  the  only  nation 
capable  of  waging  a  war  for  the  sake  of  heroism,  a  rare  virtue  in 
our  matter-of-fact  societies,  it  is  nevertheless  true  that  in  the  pre- 
sent struggle  economic  interests  were  the  main  motives;  as  we  have 
said  already,  Japan  has  neither  the  room  nor  the  food  with  which  to 
supply  the  surplus  of  her  population;  she  is  compelled  to  look  beyond 
her  own  boundaries  for  the  necessaries  of  common  life.  Internal 
motives  also  dictate  partly  her  conduct. 

The  extension  of  nations  is  in  nearly  every  case  directed  according 
to  natural  though  at  times  cruel  laws;  often  these  are  in  contra- 
diction to  the  laws  of  civilization;  so  we  see,  in  spite  of  treaties,  in 
spite  of  associations  for  peace,  in  spite  of  leagues  for  promoting 
fraternity  between  nations,  in  spite  of  arbitration  committees  or 
tribunals,  war  breaks  out  suddenly,  irresistibly,  when  vital  economic 
interests  are  at  stake.  Nations  go  back  to  the  state  of  primitive 
man,  and  the  right  of  the  stronger  becomes  the  rule. 

It  must  not  be  forgotten  that  if  Japan  needs  an  extension  of  terri- 
tory for  her  excess  population,  she  has  the  need  scarcely  less  im- 
portant of  keeping  up  her  communication  with  the  various  nations 
among  which  she  desires  to  hold  her  rank.  The  construction  of  the 
Siberian  Railway,  in  shortening  the  time  of  the  journey  from  Europe 
to  Asia,  has  also  practically  shortened  the  distances.     Until  the 


HISTORY  OF  ASIA  — GENERAL  SURVEY.         103 

problematic  project  of  building  a  railway  to  unite  the  Mediterranean 
Sea  to  the  Far  East  by  the  way  of  Persia  and  India  shall  be  carried 
out,  and  whatever  be  the  result  of  the  present  war,  Russia  will  hold 
the  highway  of  intercommunication  between  Europe  and  Asia;  less 
than  any  other  nation  can  Japan  afford  to  give  up  the  use  of  this 
route,  and  being  thus  dependent  upon  the  Russians  cannot  keep  in 
a  state  of  perpetual  hostility  with  them. 

During  a  long  time,  we  had  in  Europe  the  bad  habit  of  studying 
separately  the  various  political  problems  and  of  seeing  only  partic- 
ular cases  in  what  were  really  but  the  secondary  effects  from  general 
causes.  Nowadays,  there  is  not  a  single  problem  of  foreign  politics 
which  can  be  treated  with  indifference.  Whatever  be  the  part  of  the 
globe  where  the  gun  thunders,  the  repercussion  of  it  is  felt  in  the 
capitals  of  the  whole  world;  special  questions  become  questions  of 
general  interest,  and  the  effort  of  diplomacy  to  avoid  a  universal 
conflagration  tends  to  circumscribe  the  struggle  between  those  chiefly 
concerned;  the  task  is  rendered  the  more  arduous  in  that  the  multiple 
treaties  or  alliances  between  nations  extend  the  limits  of  the  debates 
and  thus  increase  the  chances  of  a  general  conflict. 

Europe  used  to  consider  Asia,  except  in  her  western  part,  as  a 
domain  where  events  rolled  on  without  any  distant  effect  and  having 
therefore  but  an  interest  of  mere  curiosity.  China,  Bossuet  could 
pass  over  in  silence,  that  is  to  say  the  third  of  the  total  population  of 
the  globe,  in  his  Discours  sur  VHistoire  Universelle,  a  very  poor  work 
by  the  bye,  admired  only  by  those  who  have  not  read  it.  However, 
during  the  course  of  the  fifth  century  the  invasion  of  the  barbarians, 
and  in  the  thirteenth  the  raids  of  the  Mongols,  should  have  opened 
the  eyes  of  the  most  blind  of  observers.  And  these  considerable 
events  were  not  the  result  of  fortuitous  causes,  but  the  natural  con- 
sequence of  important  events  which  had  happened  in  the  interior 
of  Asia,  while  our  ancestors  had  not  the  faintest  suspicion  of  them. 

Moreover,  the  great  navigators  of  the  sixteenth  century  unraveled 
the  mystery  which  shrouded  the  remote  countries  and  helped  to 
make  clear  the  interest  Europe  had  in  knowing  them  better,  and 
let  us  say,  with  frank  cynicism,  in  speculating  upon  them. 

The  first  attempts  to  create  factories,  then  the  conquests  at  the 
end  of  the  seventeenth  and  during  the  eighteenth  centuries,  showed 
that  Europe  had  abandoned  her  majestic  indifference,  and  was  feeling 
the  necessity  of  a  policy  which  reached  beyond  the  horizon  bounded 
by  her  small  and  greedy  continent. 

At  the  close  of  the  wars  of  the  First  Empire,  as  soon  as  peace  is 
signed,  we  see  the  Western  nations  resume  the  routes  to  Asia,  for 
a  short  period  neglected.  England  in  India  and  China,  the  Dutch 
in  the  Spice  Islands,  France  in  Indo-China,  later  on  the  Russians 


104         HISTORY  OF  GREECE,  ROME,   AND  ASIA 

in  Central  Asia,  then  in  the  basin  of  the  Amoor  River,  all  rush  to 
the  conquest  of  new  territories;  appetites  are  sharpened,  rivalries 
created;  means  of  more  rapid  locomotion  shorten  distances;  a  new 
nation,  Japan,  is  born  to  civilization,  or  to  what  it  pleases  us  to  call 
civilization;  and  Central  and  Eastern  Asia,  being  no  more  isolated, 
are  dragged  into  the  inharmonious  concert  of  universal  politics. 

The  Chinese  problem,  simple  in  1842,  when  England  signed  the 
treaty  of  Nanking,  became  more  complicated  from  year  to  year  by 
the  introduction  of  fresh  and  powerful  interests,  following  in  this  the 
ordinary  laws  of  politics.  The  arrival  of  the  Russians  by  the  north, 
the  transformation  of  Japan  to  a  modernized  empire,  the  occupation 
of  Indo-China  by  France  and  England,  the  taking  possession  of  two 
Oceanic  archipelagoes  by  the  United  States,  the  newly  born  colonial 
ambitions  of  Germany,  new  means  of  transport  with  a  rapidity  which 
could  not  be  foreseen  half  a  century  ago,  at  last  the  magnificent 
prey  at  stake,  made  the  problem,  so  simple  at  first,  one  of  increas- 
ing complexity. 

The  Chinese  question,  which  is  but  one  of  the  aspects  of  the  foreign 
politics  of  some  nations,  such  as  France,  the  United  States,  and  even 
England,  is  vital  for  Japan,  to  a  lesser  degree  for  Russia,  which  by 
a  check  will  only  be  delayed  in  her  designs  for  a  more  or  less  pro- 
tracted period.  Political  problems  are  interwoven  one  with  another; 
Far  Eastern  problems  are  connected  with  Oceanic  problems,  and 
among  the  Powers  who  are  to  play  a  part  in  the  Pacific,  we  must 
reckon  the  young  and  active  British  Colony,  the  Commonwealth 
of  Australia,  which  is  beginning  its  international  life  and  will  one 
day  be  called  upon  for  some  considerable  deeds.  In  this  rapid  sur- 
vey I  can  make  but  a  passing  allusion  to  the  certain  effect  which 
the  accomplishment  of  the  great  work  of  cutting  a  canal  across  the 
Isthmus  of  Panama  will  bring  into  the  relations  of  the  whole  world. 

In  fifty  years  the  alterations  in  the  ways  of  intercommunication 
have  completely  changed  not  only  the  politics  of  Asia  but  also 
of  the  rest  of  the  world.  China,  which,  in  1842,  had  to  stand  but 
against  Great  Britain,  in  1858  had  to  reckon,  besides  this  Power, 
with  France,  the  United  States,  and  Russia.  The  most  audacious 
people  might  hesitate  to  undertake  remote  expeditions  involving  a 
journey  of  several  months  by  the  Cape  Route;  the  way  of  Siberia, 
taken  again  by  the  Russians  led  by  Muraviev  (1856),  was  long  and 
difficult;  the  opening  of  the  Suez  Canal  (1869), coinciding  with  im- 
provements to  the  steam-engine,  permitted  the  establishment  of  more 
direct  and  frequent  relations  between  the  peoples  of  the  West  and 
those  of  the  Far  East;  finally  the  completion  of  the  Siberian  Rail- 
way during  recent  years,  placing  Pe-king  within  three  weeks  from 
Paris  and  London,  could  not  longer  allow  any  European  country 


HISTORY  OF  ASIA  — GENERAL  SURVEY  105 

to  remain  indifferent  to  the  fate  of  Eastern  Asia.  We  see  just  the 
reverse  of  what  happened  in  the  course  of  the  fifth  and  thirteenth 
centuries  when  we  witnessed  the  movement,  the  delayed  ebb  tide 
of  a  wave  rolled  from  the  depths  of  Asia,  which  will  resume  its  old 
course  in  the  near  future  if  we  may  believe  in  the  predictions  of 
ominous  prophets. 

The  laws  which  regulate  the  existence  of  peoples  are  similar  to 
those  which  govern  the  lives  of  individuals.  Man  is  born,  lives,  dies  ; 
nations  have  their  periods  of  growth,  climax,  transformation,  decline, 
and  disappearance;  this  disappearance  is  not  nothingness,  which  is 
meaningless;  it  is  no  more  total  in  a  nation  than  in  the  individual, 
as,  according  to  Lavoisier's  celebrated  formula,  "In  nature  nothing 
is  created,  nothing  is  lost";  the  scattered  elements  go  toward  the 
constitution  of  new  nationalities. 

The  adult  age  of  a  nation,  that  is  to  say  the  highest  pitch  it  has 
reached,  is  the  period  when  it  has  completed  its  complete  unity  for 
which  it  struggled  during  the  time  of  its  growth.  This  period  of 
highest  prosperity  can  last  a  shorter  or  longer  lapse  of  time,  but 
all  bodies  which  carry  in  themselves  the  germs  of  their  development 
contain  also  the  elements  of  their  decay,  which  appear  sooner  or 
later  according  to  circumstances. 

China  has  known  brilliant  periods  in  her  history,  such  as  that  of 
the  T'ang  Dynasty  from  the  seventh  to  the  ninth  centuries,  a  time 
which  the  Chinese  people  still  remember  gratefully;  such  as  that  of 
the  Mongol  supremacy  in  the  thirteenth  century,  when  the  power  of 
the  Great  Khans  extended  from  the  Chinese  Sea  to  the  right  banks 
of  the  Volga. 

China  has  even  known  a  period  of  splendor  under  the  first  sovereigns 
of  the  present  Manchu  Dynasty,  the  great  emperors,  K'ang-hi  and 
K'ien-lung;  from  the  River  of  the  Black  Dragon  to  Indo-China, 
from  the  Oriental  Sea  to  the  Celestial  Mountains  and  the  mysterious 
capital  of  the  Dalai-lama,  the  name  of  the  Son  of  Heaven  was  feared 
and  respected;  then  shone  upon  the  Flowery  Kingdom  an  incom- 
parable eclat  ignored  by  the  contemporary  Westerners,  similar  in 
this  respect  to  the  Chinese  of  to-day  who  do  not  know  the  real  force 
of  occidental  nations. 

Immobility,  as  is  the  case  with  China,  when  all  the  others  are  pro- 
gressing, is  not  stability;  it  is  retrogression;  rivals  and  competitors 
are  advancing  without  any  rest.  Woe  to-day  on  the  people  who  in 
the  scramble  of  nations  tries  to  stop;  it  is  drawn  forcibly  along, 
uprooted  like  the  proud  tree  carried  in  its  mad  race  by  the  tumultuous 
flood. 

Has  the  decline  of  China,  which  began  with  the  nineteenth  century, 
and  had  increased  from  reign 'to  reign,  reached  now  the  last  period 
of  the  crisis?    I  believe  it;  but  we  are  witnessing  an  evolution,  not 


106         HISTORY  OF  GREECE,  ROME,   AND  ASIA 

a  disappearance.  In  fact,  only  the  system  of  government  and  those 
who  administer  it  are  worn  out  and  corrupt  and  have  served  their  pur- 
pose. The  Chinaman  has  always  preserved  his  sterling  qualities: 
honesty,  sobriety,  inclination  to  work,  love  of  his  family,  attachment 
to  his  home,  which  are  his  characteristic  traits,  have  given  him  vitality, 
increased  his  longevity,  and  constituted  his  real  strength.  The 
Chinese  absorb  their  conqueror,  who  disappears  in  the  strong  indi- 
viduality of  the  vanquished,  as  a  stream,  less  powerful  in  appear- 
ance, often  captures  the  neighboring  watercourse,  more  important 
but  ill-protected  against  an  enemy  of  whose  existence  it  is  unaware. 
The  warlike  Mongol  of  the  Middle  Ages  has  become  a  peaceful  shep- 
herd of  flocks,  and  the  fierce  Manchu  invader  of  the  seventeenth 
century  is  now  but  one  of  the  innumerable  functionaries  who  crowd 
the  administrative  hierarchy  of  the  Celestial  Empire.  The  evolu- 
tion of  China  has  hardly  commenced  as  yet ;  a  few  isolated  reformers 
can  have  no  real  influence  upon  so  vast  an  empire.  Railroads  will 
be  the  conqueror  of  China;  the  steam-engine  will  carry  through  the 
whole  empire  ideas  —  not  French,  English,  German,  nay,  nor  Japan- 
ese — but  new  general  ideas  which  will  give  to  the  Chinese  a  charac- 
teristic individuality. 

After  innovations  will  this  great  body  remain  homogenous? 

Homogeneity  exists  in  China  by  virtue  of  the  centralization  of  the 
administration  and  the  common  origin  of  the  mandarins,  but  the 
points  of  view  of  the  country  and  the  customs  of  the  races  which 
inhabit  it  are  exceedingly  varied;  its  different  parts  are  merely  placed 
in  juxtaposition;  they  are  not  blended  into  one  uniform  mass;  they 
are  only  united  by  the  artificial  tie  of  government.  Strip  the  Chinese 
of  the  queue  which  adorns  the  back  of  his  head  and  suppress  the 
shaving  of  his  skull,  made  compulsory  by  the  victorious  Tartar,  and 
one  will  see  the  most  varied  peoples  throughout  the  Empire.  The 
Chinese  of  Canton  and  the  Chinese  of  Pe-king  vary  almost  more 
one  from  the  other  than  the  English  and  the  French;  the  Lolo  of 
Se-tch'uan  is  as  unlike  the  Chinaman  as  a  Volga  Kalmuk  is  unlike 
a  Baltic  German;  the  rough  mountains  of  Yun-nan  have  nothing 
of  the  pleasing  appearance  of  the  hills  of  Che-Kiang;  the  plain  of 
China,  practically  the  valley  of  the  Imperial  Canal,  does  not  recall 
in  any  manner  the  uneven  country  of  the  Upper  Yang-tse. 

What  will  this  evolution  be,  rendered  compulsory  by  the  fall  of  an 
obsolete  and  rotten  administration,  hastened  by  the  construction 
of  railways,  and  an  obligatory  contact  with  peoples  differing  in 
their  civilization,  in  their  appearance,  in  their  aspirations?  No  one 
can  say. 

There  is  no  place  in  China  for  the  immigration  of  foreigners  who 
would  not  certainly  seek  their  livelihood  in  the  sterile  parts  of  the 
Empire  devastated  by  famine;  but  privileged  or  rather  favored  by 


HISTORY  OF   ASIA  — GENERAL  SURVEY  107 

chance,  merchants,  engineers,  soldiers  will  be  able  to  subsist  as  in 
the  past.  Will  they  exercise  some  of  the  influence  hitherto  refused 
to  the  foreign  element?  I  think  so,  thanks  to  the  economic  revolu- 
tion worked  by  railways,  which  cannot  fail  to  be  followed  by  a  social 
revolution.  However  democratic  the  system  of  Chinese  adminis- 
tration may  be,  —  an  administration  all  the  degrees  of  which  are 
accessible  to  the  most  deserving  or  the  most  intriguing,  —  the  Chinese 
dignitaries  are  nevertheless  a  backward  caste  which  prevent  all 
progress.  But  if  this  state  of  things  has  lasted  in  China  during  cen- 
turies, if  the  narrow  and  abusive  interpretation  of  the  precepts  of 
Confucius  has  postponed  the  introduction  of  reforms,  it  is  only  be- 
cause the  means  of  intercommunication  were  too  slow  and  too  rare 
between  the  various  parts  of  this  immense  Empire.  That  great  events 
could  take  place  in  certain  regions  without  other  provinces  having 
the  least  knowledge  of  them;  that  the  very  existence  of  the  Empire 
could  have  been  threatened  as  it  was  in  1858  and  1860,  without  the 
bulk  of  the  nation  having  the  least  inkling  of  the  danger,  will  sur- 
prise only  those  who  are  ignorant  of  China.  Things  will  be  changed 
when  a  net  of  rapid  highroads  shall  cross  the  eighteen  provinces,  and 
bring  them  into  direct  relation  with  the  countries  where  the  outer 
barbarians  have  settled.  The  management  of  affairs  will  fall  into 
the  hands  of  those  who,  more  clear-sighted  than  their  elders,  shall 
have  foreseen  the  new  state  of  things;  the  Star  of  Confucius  will 
vanish  in  the  steam  of  the  locomotive,  and  fade  in  the  light  of  the 
electric  spark. 

Whether  China  will  remain  a  territorial  unit,  which  I  do  not  believe, 
the  economic  interests  of  the  north  and  the  south,  of  the  east  and 
of  the  west  being  too  divergent;  whether  she  will  keep  her  autonomy, 
or  be  dismembered,  or  held  in  bondage  by  foreign  chiefs  —  the  prolific 
Chinese  race  will  ever  remain  one  of  the  most  important  factors  in 
the  great  struggle  for  life  of  races  and  nations,  a  struggle  for  which 
she  is  assuredly  better  prepared  than  many  of  those  who  consider 
her  an  easy  prey,  which  they  may  possibly  devour,  but  certainly  will 
not  digest. 

It  is  not  without  some  intent  that  till  now  I  have  hardly  spdken  of 
the  United  States,  whose  guest  I  am  to-day;  last  but  not  least. 

The  initiative  of  the  trade  of  the  United  States  with  the  Far  East 
is  not  due,  as  one  might  be  tempted  to  beUeve,  to  the  merchants  of 
the  western  coast,  but  to  the  enterprising  and  spirited  merchants 
of  New  England,  Boston,  New  York,  Baltimore,  whose  wooden 
ships  doubled  Cape  Horn  to  go  to  Canton.  Eight  years  after  the 
Declaration  of  Independence,  on  Sunday,  February  22,  1784,  for 
the  first  time  an  American  ship.  The  Empress  of  China,  set  sail  at 
New  York  for  China;  since  then  an  unbroken  line  of  vessels  flying 


108         HISTORY  OF  GREECE,  ROME,   AND  ASIA 

the  star-spangled  banner  has  crossed  the  Pacific  Ocean  and  estab- 
Hshed  a  communication  between  Young  America  and  Old  Asia;  but 
the  starting-point  has  been  changed,  and  it  is  now  from  the  coast 
of  Cahfornia  that  the  swift  steamers  which  connect  the  two  shores 
are  sent. 

I  remember  the  time,  not  yet  far  ofif,  when  the  American  trade 
almost  equaled  that  of  England,  and  when  at  Canton  and  Shang-hai 
the  "Merchant  Princes"  of  Boston  and  New  York  did  not  yield 
either  in  their  wealth  or  their  influence  to  those  of  London  and 
Liverpool.  Looking  backward,  I  cannot  but  think  with  gratefulness 
and  not  without  some  melancholy  of  the  happy  hours  I  have  spent 
in  the  house  of  Messrs.  Russell  &  Co.,  whose  head,  Edward  Cun- 
ningham of  Boston,  was  the  most  popular,  the  most  esteemed,  and 
the  most  justly  influential  citizen  of  Shang-hai. 

The  civilizing  mission  which  the  United  States  have  taken  upon 
themselves  has  been  extended  beyond  the  already  large  frontiers 
of  their  dominion;  the  occupation  of  the  Hawaiian  and  Philippine 
Islands  has  created  new  desires  in  a  commercial  and  industrial  na- 
tion, turned  it  into  a  political  power  which,  in  the  future  destinies 
of  this  new  Mediterranean  called  the  Pacific  Ocean,  has  the  right 
to  claim  its  share  of  legitimate  influence. 

May  I  be  permitted  at  the  end  of  this  lecture  to  express  my  grati- 
tude to  those  who  did  me  the  honor  and  gave  me  the  pleasure  of  an 
invitation  to  come  among  you,  and  to  crave  the  indulgence  of  my 
hearers,  ill  as  I  have  performed  my  task. 

Citizen  of  the  great  Sister  Republic,  I  do  not  forget  that  being 
bom  on  the  banks  of  the  mighty  Mississippi,  at  New  Orleans,  the 
first  years  of  my  life  were  spent  under  the  shelter  of  the  star-spangled 
banner  of  the  Union;  I  feel  happy  to  speak  before  fellow  country- 
men, regretting  the  absence  of  the  world-renowned  traveler  and 
scholar,  my  friend,  the  Hon.  WilUam  Woodville  Rockhill. 


SUPPLEMENTARY  PAPER 

A  short  paper  waa  read  before  this  Section  by  Professor  W.  S.  Ferguson,  of  the 
University  of  Cahfornia,  on  "Plutarch  as  a  Comparative  Biographer."  The 
line  of  argiunent  chosen  by  the  speaker  was  first  to  demonstrate  that  one  of  the 
principles  on  which  Plutarch  chose  the  material  for  his  Lives  was  the  similarity 
in  character  and  career  to  be  established  between  the  Greek  and  the  Roman 
hero;  and  second,  to  exhibit  in  the  case  of  one  book  (the  10th),  dealing  with 
Pericles  and  Fabius  Maximus,  the  historical  perversions  which  this  principle 
occasioned. 


SECTION  C  — MEDIEVAL  HISTORY 


■ 


SECTION  C— MEDIEVAL  HISTORY 


{Hall  6,  September  21,  3  p.  m.) 
Chairman:  Professor  Charles  H.  Haskins,  Harvard  University. 
Speakers:  Professor  Karl  Gotthart  Lamprecht,  University  of  Leipzig. 
Professor  George  Burton  Adams,  Yale  University. 
Secretary:  Professor  Earle  W.  Dow,  University  of  Michigan. 


HISTORICAL  DEVELOPMENT  AND  PRESENT  CHARACTER 
OF  THE  SCIENCE  OF  HISTORY 

BY    PROFESSOR    KARL    GOTTHART  LAMPRECHT 

[Karl  Gotthart  Lamprecht,  Professor  of  History,  Director  of  the  Historical  Semin- 
ary and  Historico-geographical  Institute,  University  of  Leipzig;  and  Privy 
Coimcilor  to  the  Court  of  Saxony,  b.  1856,  Jessen,  Province  of  Saxony.  Uni- 
versity of  Gottingen,  1874-76;  University  of  Leipzig,  1876-78;  University  of 
Miinchen,  1879.  A.M.  and  Ph.D.  University  of  Leipzig;  LL.D.  Columbia 
University.  Candidate  of  Superior  Tutorship  Friedrich-Wilhebn  Gynmasium, 
Cologne-on-Rhine,  1879-80;  Privat-docent  and  Associate  Professor,  University 
of  Bonn,  1881-90;  Professor  of  History,  University  of  Marburg,  1890-91; 
University  of  Leipzig,  1891 .  Member  various  scientific  and  learned  socie- 
ties. Author  or  Editor  of  Contributions  to  the  History  of  French  Economical  His- 
tory; German  Political  Economy  in  the  Middle  Agesj,  Sketches  on  the  History  of 
the  Rhine;  History  of  Germany,  8  vols.,  and  many  other  works  of  history  and 
historical  method.] 

History  is  primarily  a  socio-psychological  science.  In  the  conflict 
between  the  old  and  the  new  tendencies  in  historical  investigation, 
the  main  question  has  to  do  with  social-psychic,  as  compared  and 
contrasted  with  individual-psychic  factors;  or,  to  speak  somewhat 
generally,  the  understanding  on  the  one  hand  of  conditions,  on  the 
other  of  heroes,  as  the  motive  powers  in  the  course  of  history. 
Hence,  the  new  progressive,  and  therefore  aggressive  point  of  view 
in  this  struggle  is  the  socio-psychological,  and  for  that  reason  it  may 
be  termed  modern.  The  individual  point  of  view  is,  on  the  other 
hand,  the  older,  one  that  is  based  on  the  championship  of  a  long- 
contested  but  now,  by  means  of  countless  historical  works,  a  well- 
established  position. 

What  is,  then,  the  cause  of  these  differences?  Personal  preference, 
or  the  special  endowments  of  individual  investigators?  The  reaction 
of  feeling  against  the  former  exaggerations  of  the  one  or  the  other 
principle?  Assimilation  to  other  trends  of  thought,  philosophic  or 
scientific,  of  the  science  of  history?  Nothing  of  the  kind.  Rather, 
we  are  at  the  turn  of  the  stream,  the  parting  of  the  ways  in  historical 
science. 


112  MEDIEVAL  HISTORY 

In  order  to  understand  better  the  process  that  is  going  on,  let  us 
consider  the  following  contrasts. 

Take  first  a  period  in  which  all  men,  within  a  relatively  small 
community,  such  as  we  see  in  the  beginnings  of  a  nation,  are  abso- 
lutely of  the  same  psychic  equaUty,  so  much  so  that  they  in  action 
and  feehng  can  be  said  to  stand  side  by  side  as  examples  of  the 
same  endowments.  Then  take  another  age  in  which,  within  a  given 
community  of  much  greater  extent,  each  individual  differs  in  kind 
from  all  others,  so  that  —  even  more  than  is  at  present  the  case  — 
his  voUtions  and  sensations  differ  radically  from  those  of  his  fellow 
men. 

It  is  clear,  then,  that  we  have  here  the  two  poles  of  human  activity, 
whose  influences  must  give  different  results  in  any  study  of  the 
currents  of  life  that  we  call  historical  psychic  existence,  the  life 
embraced  within  the  limits  of  these  poles.  In  the  first  case  the 
treatment  would  yield  only  a  delineation  of  the  life  of  units;  for  the 
treatment  of  the  collective  psychic  existence  would  produce  as  a 
result  only  a  sum  of  the  already  known,  —  the  psychic  existence  of  the 
individual.  In  the  second  case  we  should  indeed  take  a  glance  first 
at  the  psychic  life  of  the  unit,  from  which  it  would  be  seen  that  it  by 
no  means  included  the  character  of  the  life  of  the  many,  but  rather 
that  the  collective  psychic  life  fertilized  by  the  marked  deviations 
of  the  individual  within  itself  is  quite  a  thing  in  itself,  with  its  peculiar 
psychic  or  socio-psychic  character;  and  that  to  this  spiritual  life 
of  the  whole,  the  psychic  activity  of  the  individual  is  in  such  a 
manner  subordinate  as  to  be  dominated  by  it  for  the  best  and  highest 
ends. 

One  sees,  therefore,  that  the  first  case  of  the  coexistence  of  per- 
sons psychically  quite  identical  would  result  in  a  purely  individual 
psychology;  the  second  case  of  coexistence  of  absolutely  differ- 
entiated persons  would  result  in  a  radically  socio-psychological 
historical  method  of  treatment. 

But  the  instances  just  given  never  occur  in  perfection.  However, 
the  connections  formed  among  them  constitute  principles  in  the 
course  of  history  and  historical  science;  the  pole  of  similarly  organ- 
ized persons  appears  in  the  beginning  of  cultural  development  as 
the  principle  of  lower  culture,  while  the  pole  of  dissimilar  units 
reveals  itself  as  underlying  higher  cultures,  for  the  simple  reason 
that  the  trend  of  evolution  is  toward  progressive  differentiation 
and  intergradation  of  the  human  soul. 

If  on  the  results  of  the  examples  cited  and  deduced  in  a  purely 
psychological  manner  are  based  the  main  principles  of  every  develop- 
ment of  historical  treatment  from  the  lowest  to  the  highest,  one 
finds  corresponding  to  them,  in  the  various  civilizations  of  the 
world,  the  same  course  of  history,  descriptive  or  scientific.    It  begins 


THE   SCIENCE  OF   HISTORY  113 

always  with  the  individual-psychological  investigation  of  the  past, 
and  arrives  finally  at  a  markedly  social-psychological  point  of  view. 
In  a  word,  it  is  the  course  of  events  which  begins  with  the  heroic 
poem  and  ends  with  the  history  of  civilization.  If  we  paint  the 
panorama  of  this  historiographic  development  rather  more  vividly 
and  minutely,  it  will  be  seen  that  the  individuals  of  the  lower  stages 
of  civilization  have  as  little  consciousness  of  the  conditions  that 
are  characteristic  of  them,  as  of  the  difference  between  these  con- 
ditions and  those  of  other  stages  of  civilization.  The  English,  French, 
Italian,  and,  in  particular,  the  German  poet  of  the  golden  age  of 
medievalism  who  worked  over  the  materials  of  classic  antiquity, 
transferred  them  unconsciously  to  the  conditions  of  his  own  age. 
iEneas  became  a  knight,  and  Dido  a  fair  chatelaine.  It  was  only  the 
beginning  of  modern  times,  the  closing  centuries  of  dying  medieval- 
ism, that  brought  the  dawn  of  a  comprehension  of  the  differences 
of  various  cultural  conditions,  and  therefore  in  our  opinion  a  quick- 
ened sense  of  the  historical  difference  of  the  periods  of  civilization 
in  general.  Similar  observations  might  be  made  in  the  history  of 
ancient  peoples  and  in  the  cultural  phases  of  Eastern  Asia.  Every- 
where the  beginnings  of  socio-psychological  historical  compre- 
hension are  coincident  with  the  emancipation  of  individuality  from 
medieval  restraint,  in  order  to  enter  on  the  so-called  new  age  with 
the  more  rapid  process  of  its  own  differentiation. 

But  before  this  stage  is  reached,  centuries  have  elapsed,  and  cen- 
turies in  which  history  was  understood  only  in  the  individual- 
psychologic  sense,  merely  as  the  product  of  single  distinguished 
individuals.  And  correspondingly  the  forms  of  historical  tradition 
are  purely  individual.  Almost  everywhere  there  appear  two  forms 
which  may  be  taken  as  typical,  —  genealogy  and  the  heroic  poem, 

A  characteristic  beginning!  Whence  arises  its  dual  nature?  In 
both  instances  we  are  concerned  with  the  memory  of  single  persons, 
particularly  of  ancestors.  But  in  the  one  case  the  barren  record  is 
taken  from  the  purely  prosaic  reality  of  a  natural  pedigree,  in  the 
other  the  single  individual  is  selected  and  his  deeds  immortalized 
in  poetic  form  with  an  exaggerated  objectivity.  How  does  this 
difference  arise?  We  are  here  face  to  face  with  a  radical  division  in 
the  historical  point  of  view,  one  which  occurs  in  all  ages  in  higher  as 
in  lower  stages  of  culture.  It  can  be  characterized  as  the  difference 
between  naturalism  and  idealism.  In  the  first  instance  reality  is 
followed  closely,  held  fast,  copied.  To  this  belong  the  rapid  offhand 
sketches,  the  journalism  of  to-day  in  so  far  as  it  serves  as  the  annal- 
istic  medium  of  news;  and,  finally,  statistics.  In  the  other  case 
there  intervenes  between  the  simultaneous  photographic  and  phono- 
graphic impression  of  occurrences  and  their  collective  reproduction, 
time,  and  with  time,  memory.    Memory,  with  its  thousand  strange 


114  MEDIEVAL  HISTORY 

associations,  abbreviating,  rounding  off,  and  admitting  of  outer 
influences  and  inner  prejudices;  in  a  word,  memory  is  the  artist  that 
individualizes  and  remodels  its  subject.  For  what  else  is  idealism 
but  the  retrospective  treatment  of  a  theme  into  which  the  personal 
note  enters,  —  indeed  with  intention,  —  whereby  the  floodgates  are 
opened  to  the  whole  intellectual  current  of  personality  proper? 
Hence  in  higher  states  of  culture,  in  the  case  of  differentiated  indi- 
viduals, the  personal  style  arises,  and  with  it  the  personal  work  of 
art;  while  in  lower  states  of  culture,  with  individuals  of  similar 
proportions,  and  from  the  simultaneous  work  of  the  many,  the  im- 
personal, the  typical  time-style  will  arise,  and  with  it  the  art  work 
of  this  particular  style. 

This  explains,  then,  for  the  beginnings  of  historical  tradition  the 
growth  of  naturalistic  and  realistic  forms  side  by  side.  As  a  natural- 
istic form  there  appears  by  preference  the  genealogy;  as  idealistic, 
the  heroic  poem.  And  with  this  the  roots  of  the  contention  of  ages 
are  laid  bare  as  to  whether  an  historical  work  is  a  worik  of  art  or  not. 
It  will  always  be  a  work  of  art  in  so  far  as,  even  in  naturalistic  trans- 
mission, at  least  in  higher  cultural  stages,  the  influence  of  personal 
elements  cannot  be  avoided.  And  it  will  be  peculiarly  a  work  of  art 
as  soon  as,  in  the  case  of  an  important  theme,  the  imagination  can 
bring  forth  a  composition  by  means  of  idealizing  retrospection.  So 
that,  when  the  de  lege  jerenda  is  uttered,  one  can  only  advise  that 
to  every  historical  work  of  our  time,  not  only  unconsciously  but 
consciously,  the  character  of  a  work  of  art  should  be  given. 

But  genealogy  and  the  epic  are  not  the  only  forms  of  individual- 
psychic  tradition.  Together  with  them  and  with  increasing  cultural 
growth  and  "intellectual  leisure,  others  come  to  the  fore.  If  it  be 
possible  to  follow  the  progress  of  human  events  not  only  through 
the  forms  of  tradition,  as  required  in  genealogy  and  epic  poetry,  but 
more  intensively  by  means  of  the  written  letter,  the  chisel,  and  the 
stylus,  pedigrees  and  epics  will  be  superseded  —  if,  indeed,  they  do 
not  disappear  at  once  —  by  annals  and  chronicles.  And  even  these 
forms  can  be  improved  upon.  In  the  history  of  every  human  com- 
munity, the  inevitable  moment  comes  in  which  reason,  based  on 
increasing  experience,  attempts  independently  to  classify  and  con- 
trol the  world  of  phenomena,  in  which  the  logical  conclusion  begins 
gradually  to  yield  to  induction,  and  the  miraculous  to  the  causal 
principle;  and  if,  with  this,  there  begins  a  really  scientific  mastery 
of  the  outward  world,  then  this  too  takes  hold  of  historical  tradi- 
tion.  And  the  direction  it  follows  is  both  naturalistic  and  ideahstic. 

In  the  first  instance  tradition  is  ransacked  for  new  sources;  when 
found,  these  are  brought  to  light  in  a  clear-cut  literary  form.  With 
untiring  zeal  the  whole  field  is  worked  over,  and  a  careful  considera- 
tion of  isolated  events  is  entered  upon,  of  which  the  object  is  to  show 


THE  SCIENCE  OF   HISTORY  115 

each  single  occurrence  to  be  indisputably  genuine;  it  is  then  polished 
up,  rubbed  clear  of  its  rusty  casing,  and  presented  to  the  world. 

On  the  other  hand,  there  is  great  need  for  the  enormous  accumu- 
lations of  the  classified  and  isolated  traditional  data  produced  by 
the  unceasing  mills  of  naturalistic  criticism:  these  data  must  be 
turned  to  account  as  material  for  a  more  general  positive  structure 
of  history  with  its  divisions  and  emendations.  Of  course  this  is  to 
be  done  under  the  direction  of  an  authoritative  and  constructive 
mind,  and  not  without  the  aid  of  the  imagination.  How  else  is  a 
control  of  the  enormous  material  possible?  But  the  mere  memoriz- 
ing of  details  and  a  linking  together  of  particulars,  a  handling  such  as 
was  referred  to,  is  clearly  proved  to  be  impossible.  It  is  necessary 
that  we  employ  some  means  of  mechanical  combination  of  the  parts 
of  the  huge  world  of  facts  which  knowledge  alone  can  supply,  cer- 
tain forms  of  criticism  to  classify  the  mass  of  material  and  thereby 
control  it.  And  naturally  this  constructive  criticism  must  deal  in 
the  first  place  with  individuals  who  may  still  be  considered  as  the 
only  fundamental  psychic  motor  powers  of  history.  If  their  deeds, 
their  single  achievements,  and  the  collective  achievements  of  single 
persons,  —  if  these  can  be  regarded  as  parts  of  a  completed  series  of 
facts  in  ofiicial  service  or  in  an  independent  profession,  they  must 
be  grouped  according  to  a  system  which  does  not  overlook  the  uni- 
versal course  of  things  and  which  makes  the  whole  only  the  more 
intelligible.    This  is  the  origin  of  pragmatics. 

But  the  Divide  et  impera  embraced  in  the  application  of  the  prag- 
matic principle  proves  itself  to  be  insufficient  in  the  face  of  the  mass 
of  traditional  material,  continually  increasing  in  scope  as  it  does.- 
Above  those  groups  which  pragmatism  has  thus  formed  to  facilitate 
the  handling  of  events,  above  the  whole  survey  of  heroic  deeds, 
incidents  of  wars  or  diplomatic  negotiations,  we  see  appearing  by 
degrees  the  outlines  of  a  better  system  of  classification  of  material, 
a  system  which  groups  series  of  events  of  entire  ages  within  the 
domain  of  whole  nations  and  families  of  nations;  as,  for  example, 
the  outlines  of  certain  oft-recurring  incidents  in  the  history  of  the 
Papacy,  or  the  types  of  similar  occurrences  in  the  development  of 
the  Prussian  monarchy,  or  the  main  characteristics  of  religious 
movements  in  all  respects  alike  and  which  are  to  be  detected  in  the 
piety  of  all  denominations  of  Protestantism.  It  is  clearly  possible 
to  follow  these  also  in  the  paths  of  formative  criticism  far  beyond 
the  simple  domain  of  pragmatism.  The  common  landmarks,  too,  of 
historical  happenings,  especially  when  pragmatically  grouped,  can 
be  massed  together  on  the  higher  plane.  With  this  accomplished, 
the  work  of  the  historian  begins  at  the  point  where  the  development 
of  the  so-called  historic  theory  of  ideas  sets  in.  The  term  "idea" 
arises  from  the  application  of  the  word  to  the  historic  elements 


116  MEDIEVAL  HISTORY 

common  to  these  masses,  so  that  the  idea  asserts  itself  as  a  form 
of  higher  thought  integration.  And  in  Western  culture,  as  far  as 
investigation  permits  of  a  time-limit,  it  is  in  its  purely  historio- 
graphic  beginnings  to  be  first  found  in  the  historical  works  of  the 
last  half  of  the  eighteenth  century.^  One  naturally  asks  here,  had 
these  higher  forms  of  integration  from  the  beginning  a  closer  connec- 
tion with  the  naturalistic  or  ideahstic  conception  of  history?  It  is  of 
interest  to  know  that  these  comparatively  abstract  forms  of  intel- 
lectual activity  had,  for  purely  psychological  reasons  at  first,  the 
closest  connection  with  idealistic  historical  description.  AUied  with 
this  is  the  fact  that  this  activity,  having  developed  along  quite 
primitive  lines  to  a  higher  plane,  was  yet  capable  of  assuming  at 
times  a  transcendental  character.  The  ideas  which  were  made  the 
basis  of  the  understanding  of  the  greatest  historical  concatenations 
by  isolation  and  abstraction  of  the  elements  common  to  them,  did 
not  appear  as  human  ideas,  but  were  rather  divine  powers  holding 
sway  behind  these  events,  permeating  and  determining  them,  as 
emanative  and  associative  forms  of  the  absolute  working  through  the 
fates  of  men.  It  was  a  sort  of  idealistic  historical  treatment  which 
slowly  took  shape  in  Germany  in  the  course  of  the  second  half  of  the 
eighteenth  century,  which  then,  owing  to  Schelling,  passed  over  into 
the  great  idealistic  philosophy  of  German  Romanticism,  to  which 
from  the  point  of  view  of  the  profoundest  theory  of  life  Ranke 
paid  homage  as  long  as  he  lived,  and  which,  starting  from  all  these 
points  of  its  development,  became  a  constituent  part  of  all  the 
higher  historical  training  of  the  nineteenth  century. 

Meanwhile  the  strictly  epistemological  character  of  the  theory  of 
the  idea  had  certainly  been  recognized,  and  not  least  clearly  at  the 
beginning  of  the  great  discussions  of  historical  methods  in  the  early 
nineties  of  the  last  century,  and  which  have  not  yet  entirely  ceased. 
It  can  truly  be  said  that  to-day,  practically  no  one  believes  in  the 
transcendency  of  historical  ideas,  —  that  is,  not  fully,  nor  even  in 
the  Ranke  sense,  —  but  that,  on  the  other  hand,  the  usefulness  of 
the  conceptions  contained  in  them  for  the  grouping  of  the  greater 
individual-psychic  series  of  events  is  generally  conceded. 

While  the  individual-psychological  treatment  of  history  has  been 
thus  gradually  developed  to  the  state  of  perfection  which  marks  it 
to-day,  it  had  long  had  its  limits,  and,  as  far  as  the  main  prin- 
ciples of  historical  comprehension  are  concerned,  its  substitution 
in  the  form  of  socio-psychological  treatment  had  begun  and  had  been 
proved  to  be  necessary. 

In  the  course  of  the  latter  part  of  the  seventeenth,  but  more 
especially  in  the  eighteenth  and  nineteenth  centuries,  all  the  peoples 

*  Cf .  of  recent  date,  Heussi,  Church  History  and  its  Writing.  Johann  Lorenz 
von  Mosheims,  Gotha,  1904. 


THE  SCIENCE  OF   HISTORY  117 

of  Western  European  culture  passed  through  stages  in  which  the 
most  marked  psychic  differentiations  took  place  in  the  individual 
members  of  these  communities.  A  certain  time-spirit  dominated 
all  these  nations  in  which  the  civilization  of  the  new  American 
world  had  its  origin;  it  is  the  spirit  which  may  rightly  be  called  that 
of  subjectivity.  Not  uniformity,  but  variety  of  the  subjective  per- 
fection of  the  individual,  is  the  ideal  of  to-day.  And  the  collective 
culture  of  our  time  rests  on  vast  working  corporations  of  individuals 
who  are  no  less  vastly  differentiated  each  in  themselves. 

For  us  it  is  a  well-known  state  of  affairs,  this  product  of  nervous 
activity  which  has  characterized  the  last  six  or  seven  generations, 
and  it  is  superfluous  to  describe  it  in  detail.    But  it  would  not  be 
inappropriate  to  trace  once  and  for  all,  logically  and  clearly,  the 
consequences  of  these  changes  as  well  for  the  character  of  historical 
science  of  the  present  as  for  that  of  the  immediate  future.     The 
result  is  that  for  such  a  time  as  this  only  that  kind  of  historical 
comprehension  is  adequate  which,  side  by  side  with  the  individual- 
psychological,  admits  also  the  socio-psychological  treatment,  the 
consideration  of  the  evolution  of  the  collective  psychic  products 
of  human  communities  —  a  treatment  which  does  not  merely  allude 
occasionally   to   this   admission,   but   maintains   consistently   and 
unconditionally,  that  for  every  case  of  historical  investigation  the 
socio-psychological  forces  are  the  stronger,  and  therefore  those  that 
properly  determine  the  course  of  things;    that,  consequently,  they 
include  the  operation  of  the  individual-psychic  forces.    Granted  that 
this  is  the  universal  formulation  of  the  now  necessary  point  of  view 
as  it  is  carried  out  to-day  not  only  in  the  field  of  historiography  (in 
some  instances  with  a  clear  insight  into  its  consequences) ,  but  as  seen 
in  the  new  sciences  and  new  methods  which  it  has  made  to  bear  fruit, 
for  example,  sociology,  or  prehistoric  excavations;   yet  it  would  be 
a  mistake  to  assume  that  the  revolution  in  this  direction  took  place 
suddenly  or  that  it  has  even  now  reached  its  completion.    Rather 
has  it  gone  forward  slowly  in  the  course  of  at  least  a  century  and  a 
half,  if  we  reckon  according  to  events  in  Germany.   And  the  resulting 
views  have  been  shown,  though  in  steady  conflict  with  the  older 
individual-psychic  opinions,  to  be  invincible  in  spite  of  the  marks  of 
immaturity  and  a  lack  of  definiteness  borne  on  their  face.    They 
stand  forth,  nevertheless,  with  a  breadth,  a  logical  cohesion,  and  an 
inward  completeness,  which  it  has  been  beyond  the  power  of  the 
bitterest  hostility  to  weaken  or  to  remove. 

If  I  carry  the  study  further  to  the  contemplation  of  the  evolution 
of  Germany,  because  this  is  most  familiar  to  me,  and  because,  I 
believe,  by  keeping  to  a  narrower  limit,  in  the  short  time  assigned 
me  we  may  gain  greater  clearness  and  a  more  plastic  form,  I  must 
not  fail  to  mention  the  honored  name  of  Herder,  the  hundredth 


118  MEDIEVAL  HISTORY 

anniversary  of  whose  death  has  just  been  fittingly  observed  by 
Germans  throughout  the  world.  In  the  realm  of  Germanic  cultures, 
and  even  beyond  it,  Herder  stands  as  the  creator  of  the  conception 
"  folk-soul "  (the  psyche  of  the  masses) .  He  was  the  first  to  admit  the 
importance  of  the  socio-psychic  demands  for  the  proper  historical 
comprehension  of  the  most  important  of  all  human  communities,  — 
nations,  —  and  to  draw  from  these  the  necessary  conclusions.  He 
did  it,*  not  in  a  calm,  entirely  emotionless,  and  intellectual  spirit 
of  research,  but  rather  by  leaps,  and  with  all  the  enthusiasm  of 
the  explorer.  His  was  a  psychic  attitude  toward  the  new-found 
inexhaustible  material  of  the  socio-psychic  inter-relations.  But  to 
reproach  Herder  on  this  score  would  betray  an  extremely  small 
socio-psychic  understanding.  When  communities  have  made  rapid 
progress  toward  a  higher  spiritual  existence,  it  is  not  in  a  rational 
manner  or  with  purely  intellectual  age-marks  of  the  thought  or  pro- 
cess. Rather  with  youthful  feelings  of  anticipation,  with  an  ecstatic 
presentiment  of  dimly  felt  combinations,  are  the  portals  of  a  new 
epoch  entered.  Science  becomes  a  prophecy,  philosophy  turns  to 
poetical  metaphysics.  That  was  the  character  of  the  great  German 
period  of  subjectivity  that  began  with  Klopstock,  and  ended  in  the 
spreading  of  the  branches  of  the  philosophy  of  identity  —  the  period 
to  which  Herder,  as  one  of  its  first  great  phenomena,  belongs.  There- 
fore Herder's  enthusiastic  grasp  of  the  socio-psychic  elements  of  his- 
tory does  not  stand  alone.  It  is  the  property  of  the  whole  epoch  and 
dominates  the  characteristic  movement  of  the  time  —  romanticism. 
The  advance  step  in  all  this  was  a  clearer  view  of  the  vast  combin- 
ations of  the  phenomena  of  the  mass-psyche  —  an  advance  which 
brought  one  to  describe  vital  points  poetically,  in  part  or  wholly  so. 
But  there  was  not  the  clear  comprehension  of  the  constituent  ele- 
ments of  the  mass-psychic  or  even  of  the  elementary  disentangling 
of  combined  phenomena. 

It  has  been  reserved  to  the  so-called  history-of-civilization  method 
to  attempt  the  description  of  socio-psychic  phenomena,  and  Freytag, 
Riehl,  even  Burckhardt,  devoted  themselves  to  this  task.  Since  the 
last  decade  of  the  last  century,  however,  this  method  has  gradually 
grown  out  of  date. 

That  no  progress  was  made  in  historical  method  during  a  long 
period  may  be  traced  to  the  existence  of  too  great  a  mass  of  material 
to  deal  with.  To  this  another  cause  must  be  added.  The  first  great 
subjective  period,  which  had  begun  wdth  1750,  ended  about  1820,  at 
latest  1830;  then  about  1870  to  1880  another  epoch  begins,  the  second 
period  of  subjectivism.  In  the  interval,  however  (since  1820,  at 
least),  the  conquests  of  the  first  period  began  to  be  not  so  much 
developed  as  intellectualized.  Enthusiasm  yielded  to  reflection,  the 
*  See  his  Ideas  concerning  the  History  of  Mankind. 


THE  SCIENCE  OF   HISTORY  119 

anticipative  comprehension  of  rationalism.  It  is  the  rebound  in 
which,  in  the  domain  of  natural  science,  the  period  of  natural  philo- 
sophy was  replaced  by  the  recent  development  of  mechanics;  the 
change  by  which,  in  the  field  of  mental  sciences,  the  old  rationalism 
of  the  AujMarung,  as  it  had  been  developed  in  the  generations  follow- 
ing 1680,  again  became  conspicuous,  though  with  alterations.  The 
outcome  of  this  movement  in  the  science  of  history,  which  had  run 
aground  in  the  impotent  epigonism  of  art  and  poetry,  as  in  the  bar- 
ren historicism  of  the  mental  sciences  of  the  period  of  1860  to  1870, 
was  the  reappearance  of  the  individual-psychological  method.  But 
the  socio-psychological  point  of  view  was  not  yet  sufficiently  well 
grounded  to  maintain  its  supremacy.  In  the  competition  of  these 
rival  influences,  Ranke  grew  to  be  a  master  of  his  art.  This  coinci- 
dence, in  a  certain  sense  most  fortunate,  and  at  all  events  peculiar 
in  its  way,  gives  to  him  and  his  works  a  position  all  their  own.  The 
individual-psychologic  point  of  view  now  gains  the  ascendency 
more  completely,  though  not  so  much  because  of  Ranke  as  of  his 
disciples,  especially  Von  Sybel.  There  was  no  longer  any  particular 
importance  attached  to  the  efforts  of  those  who  thought  and  worked 
according  to  the  history-of-civilization  method;  these  were  not 
opposed  because  they  were  not  considered  as  of  more  than  passing 
significance.  It  was  a  time  of  almost  purely  political  activity:  the 
nation  yearned  with  every  fibre  of  its  soul  for  the  long-coveted  polit- 
ical unity.  Such  works  as  the  political  history  of  the  old  German  em- 
pire by  Giesebrecht,  or  Droy sen's  History  of  Prussian  Polity,  may  be 
cited  as  important  phenomena  in  this  connection.  Why  should  they 
not  have  preferred  political  history  —  which,  to  a  certain  extent,  was 
the  individual-psychologic  method  —  to  all  other  forms  of  history? 
This  explains  for  the  most  part  the  fact  that  the  advance  in  the 
socio-psychological  interpretation  of  events,  made  in  the  mean  time 
by  other  peoples,  for  example,  the  French  in  the  philosophy  of 
Comte,  met  with  small  acceptance  in  Germany. 

But  the  last  decades  of  the  nineteenth  century  brought  the  re- 
bound. The  years  1870  and  1871  released  men  from  their  great 
anxieties  concerning  the  national  life  and  unity;  the  development 
of  internal  culture  comes  prominently  now  to  the  front.  And  that 
happened  at  the  very  dawn  of  a  new  period  of  modern  psychic 
existence.  The  rise  of  political  economy  and  technology,  the  rapid 
development  of  freedom  of  trade  all  over  the  globe,  the  victories  of 
science  in  the  realm  of  nature,  even  to  penetrating  into  the  confines 
of  the  inner  life:  all  of  this  and  a  host  of  other  less  important  phe- 
nomena yielded  an  untold  amount  of  new  stimuli  and  possibilities 
of  association,  and  with  that  an  unheard-of  extension  of  psychic 
activity  as  then  existing.  But  of  this  more  in  another  lecture.  The 
result  was  a  marked  differentiation  of  intellectual  activity,  and  with 


120  MEDIEVAL   HISTORY 

it  the  renewed  and  determining  advance  of  the  socio-psychic  ele- 
ments. This  was  evident  along  the  whole  line  of  scientific  endeavor, 
especially  in  the  rise  of  sociology  and  anthropology  during  the  last 
decades,  with  their  far-reaching  consequences  and  accompanying 
phenomena.  In  the  domain  of  history,  this  meant  a  fresh  start  in 
the  writing  of  histories  of  civilization  in  so  far  as  the  development 
of  method  was  energetically  taken  in  hand;  description  alone  was 
no  longer  the  watchword,  but  an  intelligent  comprehension. 

It  was  now  a  question  of  following  up  the  complex  phenomena  of 
the  socio-psychic  life,  the  working  out  of  the  so-called  national  soul 
in  its  elementary  parts.  The  first  step  on  this  path  would  necessarily 
lead  to  the  immediate  analysis  of  the  phenomena  that  appeared 
within  the  existence  of  great  communities  of  men,  that  is  to  say, 
chiefly  of  nations.  Hence  the  proving  and  detailed  characterization 
of  socio-psychic  eras  within  this  domain:,  this  was  the  next  step.  We 
can  see  how  this  was  done  by  Burckhardt  who,  in  his  history  of  the 
culture  of  the  Renaissance,  was  the  first  to  point  out  the  great 
psychic  difference  between  the  so-called  Middle  Ages  and  the  periods 
of  higher  culture.  Thus  a  master  hand  determined  and  depicted  one 
of  the  most  marked  phases  in  the  rhythmic  movement  of  the  culture- 
epochs  of  a  nation.  From  this  point  the  way  must  lead  on  to  a 
statement  of  the  course  of  a  whole  series  of  cultural  ages.  This  has 
been  attempted  in  my  German  History. 

But  this  is  only  the  beginning  of  an  intensive  socio-psychological 
method.  In  this  blocking  out  of  the  culture-epochs,  the  elements  of 
the  socio-psychic  movements,  as  such,  are  not  analyzed,  but  simply 
touched  upon,  and  the  time  indicated  in  which  great  movements 
find  their  origin.  When  this  is  once  well  done,  the  question  arises 
whether  for  these  ages  of  culture  there  is  one  common  underlying 
psychic  mechanism,  and  if  so,  of  what  nature  it  is,  and  what  is  the 
aggregate  of  these  underlying,  yet  apparent,  psychic  elements.  And 
if  these  problems  are  solved,  there  appears  further  a  last  yet  perhaps 
provisional  question,  namely,  whether  the  psychic  elements  referred 
to  are  really  elementary  in  the  sense  that  they  are  to  be  found  in  the 
results  of  modern  psychology  as  hitherto  known. 

This  is  not  the  place  to  analyze  or  attempt  to  solve  the  questions 
thus  raised;  but  the  means  of  finding  an  answer  will  be  pointed  out 
in  the  later  lectures,  at  least  in  so  far  as  to  prove  that,  for  the 
mechanism  of  the  great  socio-psychic  movements,  the  same  elements 
and  laws  hold  good  of  which  proof  is  given  in  recent  psychological 
investigation,  and  with  that  of  the  discovery  of  the  elementary 
psychic  energy  proper  to  the  historical  movement.  At  this  point 
there  arises,  in  consequence  of  the  preceding  statement,  another 
question.  If  modern  historical  science  would  penetrate  to  the  inner- 
most springs  of  universal  history,  find  them  to  be  in  certain  psychic 


THE   SCIENCE  OF   HISTORY  121 

conditions,  does  it  act  thus  in  conformity  with  the  universal  tenden- 
cies of  the  time,  and  has  it  accordingly  the  prospect  of  a  wholesome 
duration  and  development?  Here  is  the  first  difficulty  to  be  solved. 
The  second  is  as  follows:  if  modern  historical  science  as  thus  set 
forth  is  in  accord  with  the  spirit  of  the  tiijie,  what  is  then  its  rela- 
tion to  and  effect  on  other  sciences? 

For  those  who  are  acquainted  with  intellectual  movements  of 
Western  Europe,  the  first  question  —  that  a  more  intensive  study 
of  all  phenomena,  a  closer  acquaintance  with  nature  —  is  easy  enough 
to  answer.  An  impression  which  at  first  took  hold  of  the  external 
phenomena  with  a  certainty  of  touch  hitherto  unknown  was  followed 
in  the  field  of  mental  sciences  and  imagination  by  a  psychological 
impressionism  that  discovered  and  revealed  the  depths  of  the  psychic 
life  which  till  now  had  lain  concealed  under  the  threshold  of  con- 
sciousness. The  spirit  brought,  in  regard  to  natural  sciences,  an 
intensity  of  observation  which  appeared  almost  to  threaten  those 
mechanical  theories  which,  during  centuries  of  energetic  research, 
had  stood  as  true  and  sufficient  for  all  further  progress  in  investiga- 
tion. In  this  course  of  psychic  progress  the  historical  science  of 
socio-psychology  takes  its  place  as  a  matter  of  course;  it  is  nothing 
but  the  application  of  greater  intensity  of  observation  to  historical 
material.  And  there  is  prospect,  therefore,  of  a  further  development 
of  this  idea,  not  only  on  Western  and  Middle  European  soil,  but 
since  the  new  psychic  existence  is  due  chiefly  to  the  vast  extension 
of  association  and  stimuli  which  arise  from  the  new  technical,  eco- 
nomic, and  social  culture,  it  will  establish  itself  everywhere  where 
Western  civilization  prevails,  as  is  actually  being  shown  to-day  in  the 
New  World  and  in  Japan. 

If  socio-psychological  history  is  of  such  growing  importance,  the 
more,  then,  does  its  relationship  to  other  sciences  call  for  considera- 
tion, even  though  but  few  words  can  be  devoted  to  it. 

Foremost  and  clearest  is  its  connection  with  psychology.  History 
in  itself  is  nothing  but  applied  psychology.  Hence  we  must  look  to 
theoretical  psychology  to  give  us  the  clue  to  its  true  interpretation. 

How  often,  indeed,  has  not  psychology  been  named  the  me- 
chanics of  mental  science,  in  particular  of  the  science  of  history? 
But  the  appreciation  of  this  connection  and  the  practical  applica- 
tion of  it  are  quite  different  things.  For  the  latter  it  is  necessary 
that  the  study  of  historical  phenomena  be  extended  to  the  most 
elementary  occurrences  and  processes,  —  even  those  processes  with 
which  psychology  has  primarily  to  do.  It  is  characteristic  of  the 
progress  of  science  during  the  period  of  subjectivism  of  about  1750 
or  that  at  the  beginning,  at  least,  neither  history  nor  psychology 
was  understood.  Of  how  Uttle  importance  was  psychology  when 
books  like  Creutzer's  Essay  on  the  Soul  and  the  fruitful  but  primitive 


122  MEDIEVAL  HISTORY 

journalism  of  the  decades  of  sentimentalism  and  the  "Sturm  und 
Drang"  periods  tried  at  least  to  set  it  free  from  the  old  traditional 
metaphysical  theories.  A  universal  genius  like  Kant  was  right  to 
refrain  from  taking  part  in  such  primitive  beginnings,  and  this  stage 
of  philosophy  corresponded  to  that  of  history. 

Psychology  and  historical  science  begin  to  approach  each  other 
about  1800,  under  the  influence  of  the  new  ideas  of  the  time;  but 
they  were  as  yet  far  from  meeting;  between  them  still  lay  heavy 
and  bulky  masses  of  scientifically  unanalyzed  psychic  matter. 

How  different  it  is  to-day  in  the  first  decade  of  a  new  period  of 
subjectivism,  which  in  so  many  of  its  parts  seems  to  be  a  restora- 
tion of  the  old,  only  in  a  higher  stage  of  development.  To-day  psy- 
chology looks  back  on  two  generations  of  investigators,  who  delivered 
it  from  the  deadly  grasp  of  metaphysics  and  made  it  an  independent 
science.  Wundt  followed  Herbart.  And  now  a  younger,  a  third, 
generation  is  at  work  perfecting  and  amplifying  the  results  obtained. 
These  results,  however  they  may  vary  and  become  matters  of  dis- 
pute, according  to  the  direction  of  investigation,  permit  a  profound 
insight  into  the  legitimate  course  of  individual-psychic  life,  such  as 
was  denied  to  our  predecessors.  The  most  important  results  of  all 
this  investigation  for  the  historical  student  are  recorded  in  the 
works  of  Wundt,  Ebbinghaus,  Miinsterberg,  Lipps,  —  collections  of 
data  which  have  already  become  indispensable  to  the  allied  sciences. 

This  is  a  condition  of  things  extremely  helpful  to  historical  science 
in  the  socio-psychic  direction.  If  one  penetrates  into  the  depths  of 
historic  causation,  it  will  be  found  that  psychology  has  prepared 
the  way  and  has  become  a  safe  guide  to  the  historian,  who  wishes  to 
make  known  his  discoveries  in  formulae  in  which  they  may  be  fitly 
expressed. 

In  this  way  psychology  and  historical  science  entered  into  partner- 
ship. The  partition  between  them  is  giving  way,  and  certainly  one 
may  say  —  if  it  may  thus  be  expressed  —  that  psychology  increas- 
ingly serves  as  a  mechanical  force  to  history. 

But  the  relations  of  the  two  sciences  are  by  no  means  thus  com- 
pletely described.  Just  as  along  with  the  psychology  of  the  normal 
adult  there  must  be  kept  in  mind  that  of  childhood  and  old  age  in 
order  that  the  antithetic  character  of  all  psychic  processes,  the 
full  extent  and  the  whole  circle  of  the  potentiality  of  the  human 
psyche,  as  far  as  the  individual  is  concerned,  may  be  appreciated 
and  the  corresponding  biological  functions  be  observed,  so  it  is 
necessary  to  obtain  a  full  comprehension  of  the  meaning  of  the 
socio-psychological  process  in  history  in  order  to  proceed  in  a  man- 
ner quite  analogous.  In  this  instance  psychology  is  dependent  on 
history,  and  only  from  an  intensive  investigation  of  the  cultural 
periods  of  mankind  as  a  whole  are  the  data  attainable  which  will 


THE   SCIENCE  OF   HISTORY  123 

enable  one  to  recognize  the  antithetic  tendencies  of  the  human 
mind  in  its  whole  empiric  compass. 

Thus  we  get  a  starting-point  from  which  the  relation  of  modern 
historical  science  to  the  other  mental  sciences  may  be  explained. 
These  may  be  divided  into  applied,  such  as  theology,  jurisprudence, 
political  economy,  politics,  etc.,  and  into  constitutive,  history  of 
language,  literature,  art,  etc.  It  is  clear  that  the  constitutive  branches 
simply  disappear  as  parts  of  modern  historical  science.  For  if  the 
latter  concerns  itself  with  the  investigation  of  the  dominating  social 
psyche  of  the  times  in  question,  and  with  its  changing  forms  during 
the  various  ages  of  culture,  it  can  only  do  this  by  taking  a  survey  of 
all  its  embodiments  in  history  from  time  to  time.  These  are  to  be 
found  in  language,  in  poetry,  and  art  (that  is,  style),  in  science  and 
philosophy,  the  climax  of  intellectual  attainment,  argumentation, 
etc.  And  correspondingly,  socio-psychological  history  is  the  universal 
foundation  of  all  these  sciences,  and  these  are  related  to  it  as  ampli- 
fying and  special  sciences.  But  even  more  is  the  case  with  relation 
to  the  applied  mental  sciences.  For  the  latter,  which  have  reference 
to  a  certain  given  psyche  of  a  certain  cultural  period,  require  a  gen- 
eral knowledge  of  this  period,  which  leads  to  the  socio-psychological 
science  of  history. 

Historical  science  therefore  plays  a  double  part:  (1)  as  the  basis 
of  the  practical  as  of  the  theoretical  mental  sciences,  and  (2)  as 
stimulus  to  an  historical  method  within  the  range  of  psychology.  It 
is  a  position  which  is  quite  normally  conditioned  by  the  fact  that 
psychic  movements  pass,  as  regards  time,  far  more  rapidly  than 
physical  movements,. and  that  the  change  appears  to  us  qualitatively 
different  on  that  account.  If  in  their  relations  the  psychic  develop- 
ments of  a  given  time  had  corresponded  to  the  physical,  only  one 
mechanism  would  be  needed  to  dominate  them  both;  for  they 
would  have  shown  a  hundred  thousand  and  more  years  ago  the 
same  character  as  they  show  in  the  traditional  records  of  to-day. 
Now  it  is  well  known  that  where  the  conception  of  life  is  in  question, 
this  is  not  the  case;  for  example,  in  animal  and  plant  organisms.  In 
human  Ufe,  that  is,  in  history,  a  moment  of  much  quicker  change 
of  phenomena  intervenes.  How  is  it  to  be  controlled?  It  can  only 
happen  in  that  psychology  as  a  psychological  mechanism  is  allied 
with  a  functional  idea  of  the  time  and  becomes  at  once  variable.  And 
this  functional  idea  historical  science  must  supply.  Through  this  it 
grows  to  be  an  evolutionistic  psychology  fully  suited  to  the  actual 
course  of  things  and  as  such  the  basis  of  mental  sciences,  both 
theoretical  and  applied. 

Is  not  the  relation  of  the  historical  to  natural  science  determined 
by  the  last  few  remarks,  even  if  these  are  only  general  propositions? 
I  think  so,  if  one  does  not  indeed  include  physics  and  chemistry  in 


124  MEDIEVAL  HISTORY 

the  historic  point  of  view,  —  sciences  the  objects  of  which  belong  to 
the  passing  moment.  However,  if  one  does  this,  nothing  remains  but 
to  admit  that  there  are  biological  agencies  even  in  inorganic  nature; 
with  this  we  are  driven  out  of  the  sphere  of  science  into  the  atmo- 
sphere of  hypothetic  philosophy,  into  metaphysical  mode  of  thought. 
It  is  not  necessary  to  transcend  the  bounds  of  our  subject,  to  pass 
over  the  border-line  that  divides  philosophy  and  science.  But  one 
thing  has  been  determined  by  these  reflections,  —  that  the  modem 
science  of  history  has  opened  up  for  itself  a  vastly  greater  field  of 
endeavor  and  conflict,  and  that  it  will  require  thousands  of  diligent 
workers  and  creative  minds  to  open  up  its  rich  and  in  many  respects 
unknown  regions,  and  to  cultivate  them  successfully. 


THE   PRESENT  PROBLEMS   OF  MEDIEVAL   HISTORY 

BY  GEORGE  BURTON  ADAMS 

[George  Burton  Adams,  Professor  of  History,  Yale  University,  since  1888.  b. 
Fairfield,  Vermont,  June  3.  1851.  A.B.  Beloit,  1873;  A.M.  ibid.  1876;  Divinity 
and  Graduate  Schools,  Yale,  1873-77;  B.D.  Yale,  1877;  Ph.D.  Leipzig,  1886 ; 
Litt.D.  Beloit,  1903;  Instructor,  Beloit  College  Academy,  1874-75;  Profes- 
sor of  History  and  English,  Drury  College,  1877-88;  Member  American  His- 
torical Association,  American  Antiquarian  Society.  Author  of  Civilization  dur- 
ing the  Middle  Ages;  European  History;  and  many  other  works  and  articles  on 
history.! 

In  the  recorded  history  of  the  human  race  the  period  known  as 
medieval  history  occupies,  as  its  name  indicates,  an  intermediate 
place.  If  we  leave  out  of  account  that  portion  of  our  long  past  which 
must  be  reconstructed  by  inference  from  a  study  of  surviving  primi- 
tive man,  or  from  monuments  and  archaeological  remains,  and  limit 
the  meaning  of  the  term  "  recorded  history  "  to  that  history  which 
has  been  recorded  in  books  and  written  documents,  then  the  period 
of  the  Middle  Ages  occupies  what  may  be  called  the  middle  third  of 
recorded  history.  The  general  problem  which  this  portion  of  the 
field  presents  to  students  of  medieval  history  is  obvious.  The  results 
of  ancient  civilization  furnish  our  starting-point.  With  these  in 
hand  it  is  our  business  to  show  how  they  were  transformed  under 
the  influence  of  new  conditions,  how  new  forces  entered  the  field, 
what  new  institutions  arose,  in  what  way  and  to  what  extent  civiliza- 
tion recovered  its  losses  by  the  way  and  became  more  diversified  and 
enriched,  and  finally  to  put  our  results  in  such  shape  that  they  may 
serve  to  explain  the  beginnings  of  modern  history  and  to  furnish 
the  key  to  many  of  its  difficulties.  It  is  our  business  first  of  all  to 
find  out  the  facts  as  they  actually  were,  in  so  far  as  this  can  be  done, 
to  indicate  carefully  the  exact  degree  of  our  knowledge,  and  finally 
on  the  basis  of  this  knowledge  to  construct  a  continuous  and  com- 
prehensive narrative  of  the  whole  period  in  order  to  set  forth  the 
results  which  have  been  reached. 

But  looked  at  more  specifically  as  a  field  of  investigation  medieval 
history,  or  at  least  the  first  half  of  it,  has  enjoyed  one  great  advantage 
over  other  periods.  The  history  of  the  Teutonic  tribes,  and  especially 
of  the  great  race  the  Franks,  who  dominated  Europe  for  some  cen- 
turies and  whose  institutions  native  and  acquired  lie  at  the  founda- 
tion of  all  later  constitutions,  belongs  at  once  to  the  national  history 
of  the  two  peoples  who  have  been  the  leaders  of  modern  historical 
scholarship,  Germany  and  France.  It  has  followed  from  this  fact 
that  the  history  of  that  large  portion  of  the  continent  which  was 
included  in  the  Empire  of  the  Franks  has  been  explored  with  micro- 


126  MEDIEVAL   HISTORY 

scopic  care  from  various  points  of  view  and  with  mutually  correcting 
natural  bias.  We  may,  I  think,  say  with  truth  that  there  is  no  other 
considerable  portion  of  history,  ancient  or  modern,  that  has  been 
as  yet  investigated  with  such  minuteness  as  that  which  embraces 
the  history  of  Europe  from  the  beginning  of  the  fifth  century  to  the 
end  of  the  ninth,  and  we  may  add  that,  as  a  natural  result,  regarding 
all  questions  of  importance  in  this  field  there  is  now  a  nearly  or 
quite  general  consensus  of  opinion  among  scholars. 

In  saying  this  I  do  not  mean  to  assert,  of  course,  anything  like 
absolute  agreement.  Probably  it  would  be  difficult  to  find  any 
single  point  of  importance  on  which  some  scholar  of  reputation  does 
not  stand  for  an  opinion  of  his  own.  But  I  do  mean  to  say  that  there 
has  now  been  formed  a  definite  body  of  opinion  on  all  the  essential 
facts  of  both  political  and  institutional  history  during  that  period 
in  which  the  great  body  of  scholars  are  agreed.  Nor  do  I  mean  that 
these  conclusions  will  not  be  attacked  in  the  future.  Aberrations 
from  them,  heretical  attacks  on  them  we  might  perhaps  call  them, 
will  occur  now  and  again,  and  their  effect  will  be  to  correct  matters 
of  detail,  to  rearrange  emphasis  on  particular  points,  or  to  bring  into 
the  field  some  minor  force  or  circumstance  overlooked;  but  it  is 
hardly  likely  now  that  this  body  of  conclusion  can  be  seriously 
called  in  question;  it  is  more  likely  that  dissenting  opinions  will  in 
the  future  find  even  less  support  than  they  do  at  present.  Nor  is  it 
probable  that  those  lines  of  work  of  which  I  shall  speak  later  as 
likely  to  lead  to  the  largest  new  results  can  modify  our  present 
conclusions  in  any  revolutionary  way. 

A  concrete  example  may  show  more  clearly  exactly  what  and  how 
much  I  mean.  At  first  sight  there  would  seem  to  be  no  topic  of  history 
in  regard  to  which  opinion  is  less  settled  than  that  of  the  origin  and 
formation  of  feudalism.  It  would  seem  to  be  a  subject  on  which  the 
greatest  diversity  of  view  prevails,  and  in  which  there  is  an  almost 
inextricable  confusion  of  theories  and  even  of  statements  of  fact. 
But  this  would  be  a  superficial  view  only.  A  careful  comparative 
examination  of  the  whole  field  would  show  that  in  the  last  twenty 
years  the  opinion  of  those  who  have  most  carefully  studied  the 
subject  has  practically  settled  down  on  a  certain  line  of  explanation 
which  may  now  be  definitely  called  the  orthodox  doctrine  of  the 
origin  and  formation  of  feudalism.  The  long  controversy  between 
the  first  scientific  students  of  the  subject,  Waitz  and  Roth,  which 
once  seriously  divided  opinion,  is  practically  settled  in  so  far  as  it 
concerns  fundamentals.  Individual  students  whose  opinions  are 
entitled  to  the  greatest  respect  may  hold  pecuHar  views  on  a  single 
point,  like  the  view  of  Professor  Brunner  on  the  origin  of  vassalage, 
but  they  influence  the  prevailing  opinion  very  little  or  not  at  all. 
Professor  Flach  is  searching  the  whole  field  with  great  care,  and 


PRESENT  PROBLEMS  OF   MEDIEVAL  HISTORY       127 

announcing  somewhat  revolutionary  views,  but  he  is  making  no 
converts.  The  influence  of  economic  factors  in  the  growth  of  feudalism 
and  the  relation  of  the  economic  institutions  which  they  produced 
to  those  more  strictly  political,  produced  chiefly  by  a  different  set 
of  causes,  have  long  been  a  difficult  puzzle  and  a  source  of  confusion; 
but  these  two  great  sides  of  feudalism  have  now  been  given  their 
proper  place  side  by  side  and  their  proper  share  in  the  common 
result.  Their  relation  need  no  longer  be  a  source  of  misunderstanding 
to  one  who  takes  both  sides  equally  into  account.  It  is  difficult  to 
see  from  what  source  or  in  what  way  the  prevailing  fine  of  explana- 
tion of  the  origin  of  feudalism  is  to  be  successfully  attacked  in  any 
essential  point.  Minor  points  remain  to  be  cleared  up,  new  light  will 
be  thrown  on  many  details,  changes  of  emphasis  will  occur,  but  no 
man  can  hope  to  undo  the  work  of  Waitz  and  Roth,  of  Fustel  de 
Coulanges  and  Brunner,  or  seriously  reform  the  common  result 
which  they  have  created.^  It  is  agreement  of  this  sort  which  I  would 
assert  to  be  practically  final,  and  disagreement  of  this  sort  which,  I 
would  declare,  does  not  affect  practical  unanimity  of  opinion. 

In  view  of  this  condition  of  things,  which  I  believe  will  be  more 
clearly  recognized  the  more  carefully  the  situation  is  considered, 
I  should  like  in  all  earnestness  to  raise  the  question  whether  the 
time  has  not  now  come  when  the  main  force  of  our  vigorous  and 
advancing  historical  effort  should  be  turned  into  some  other  portion 
of  the  field;  whether  scholarly  work  in  the  first  half  of  medieval 
history  is  not  likely  to  find  itself  more  and  more  shut  up  to  the  study 
of  minute  facts,  which  are,  it  may  be,  interesting  in  themselves, 
but  of  no  essential  influence  on  the  real  current  of  affairs.  If  this  is 
true,  and  the  students  of  medieval  history  continue  in  the  future 
as  they  have  in  the  past  to  spend  their  chief  effort  in  this  field,  are 
we  not  running  some  risk  of  that  danger  which  seems  to  threaten 
every  science  at  some  period  of  its  history,  the  danger  of  the  develop- 
ment of  a  more  or  less  barren  scholasticism,  of  magnifying  method 
into  the  all  important  thing  without  reference  to  the  result  to  be 
reached,  of  considering  the  establishment  of  the  fact  to  be  the  end 
of  all  effort,  regardless  of  the  use  to  which  it  can  be  put  when  we  have 
found  out  what  it  is.  It  is  not  the  place  here  to  call  attention  to  the 
few  and  not  as  yet  important  signs,  which  I  think  can  even  now  be 
detected,  of  the  approach  of  this  danger.  Suggestion  rather  than 
argument  is  the  purpose  of  this  paper.  And  the  first  suggestion 
which  I  would  make  is  this:    have  we  not  now  reached  the  point 

'  Such  a  statement  in  regard  to  the  probable  results  of  future  investigation  will 
be  thought  by  many  somewhat  hazardous.  In  so  far,  however,  as  objection  may 
take  a  specific  form,  either  now  or  in  the  future,  it  will  be  found,  I  think,  to  be 
due  to  an  opinion  that  some  modification  of  detail  ought  to  be  considered  a  modi- 
fication of  fundamentals.  My  statement  really  means  that  such  an  opinion  is 
likely  to  remain  individual  and  not  to  become  general. 


128  MEDIEVAL  HISTORY 

in  our  study  of  the  first  half  of  the  Middle  Ages  when  we  should 
expect  and  encourage,  as  the  next  step  in  advance,  constructive 
rather  than  analytical  work? 

Now  I  believe  there  is  no  student  of  history  who  will  assert  that 
the  establishment  of  the  fact  as  the  result  of  a  special  investigation 
is  the  ultimate  object  of  historical  study.  However  great  may  be  the 
intellectual  pleasure  of  the  discovery  of  the  hitherto  unknown  fact 
by  a  truly  scientific  process  —  and  there  are  few  greater  —  and 
however  great  the  consequent  temptation  to  regard  the  process  and 
its  immediate  result  as  of  supreme  importance,  we  all  know  that  to 
find  out  what  really  was,  or  what  really  happened,  at  a  given  time 
or  place  is  only  a  means  to  a  further  end.  And  whether  or  not  we 
quite  believe  that,  as  has  been  said,  the  only  really  permanent  work 
is  the  artistic  embodiment  of  truth  in  forms  of  beauty,  it  is  true 
that  the  ultimate  purpose  of  all  historical  activity  should  be  the 
construction  of  a  continuous  narrative  account  of  the  life  of  man- 
kind, or  of  a  nation,  through  a  given  epoch  or  through  the  whole 
course  of  time.  Such  a  narrative  must  be  based,  of  course,  upon 
a  great  body  of  strictly  scientific  investigation  which  must  go 
before  it.  It  must  leave  nothing  to  conjecture  or  theory  that  is 
capable  of  proof,  but  it  is  not  necessary  that  it  should  make 
mention  of  every  minute  fact  which  has  been  discovered.  Its  object 
should  rather  be  to  display  in  proper  proportion  and  sequence  the 
sum  total  of  influences,  both  facts  and  forces,  which  have  really 
determined  the  current  of  events  with  their  results,  destined  in  their 
turn  to  become  the  causes  and  conditions  of  a  new  era.  Whether 
such  a  comprehensive  picture  in  the  life  of  the  race  will  be  a  work 
of  art,  like  the  ideal  which  some  earlier  historians  have  had  in  mind, 
whether  it  will  teach  mankind  lessons  of  morality,  or  of  economic 
advantage,  or  of  practical  statesmanship,  it  is  not  the  business  of  the 
historian  to  inquire.  But  it  is  his  business  to  determine  when  the 
work  of  special  investigation  in  any  period  has  gone  so  far  that  the 
work  of  broad  construction  is  possible,  correctly  inclusive  and  exclu- 
sive, with  proper  perspective,  and  with  such  a  sound  foundation 
of  knowledge  that  future  investigation  is  not  likely  to  overturn  any 
really  essential  portion  of  it.  We  shall  all  agree  upon  this,  I  think. 
Nor  do  I  think  there  will  be  many  to  deny  that  one  of  the  surest 
signs  that  a  science  like  ours  is  passing  into  a  condition  of  mere 
scholasticism  is  that  such  a  stage  of  approaching  completeness  in 
the  history  of  investigation  should  be  reached  and  not  naturally 
arouse  the  spirit  and  power  of  constructive  work  on  a  broad  scale. 
That  the  workers  in  such  a  field  should  be  content  to  spend  their 
best  efforts  in  determining  slight  details,  whose  influence  on  what 
the  age  was  really  doing  was  without  significance,,  would  be  a  most 
deplorable  and  hopeless  condition  of  things.  That  investigation  has 


PRESENT  PROBLEMS   OF   MEDIEVAL  HISTORY       129 

reached  a  stage  like  this  in  very  few  fields  of  history  is  certainly 
true.  I  wish  to  be  distinctly  understood  to  raise  question  whether 
that  stage  has  not  been  reached  in  the  study  of  the  period  extending 
from  what  we  commonly  call  the  fall  of  the  Roman  Empire  to  the 
fall  of  Charlemagne's,  and  whether  we  ought  not  now  to  expect  and 
encourage  as  the  next  proper  advance  of  our  work  attempts  at  a 
final  constructive  history  of  this  age.  It  is,  to  be  sure,  only  a  portion 
of  medieval  history  —  a  fragment  of  a  larger  age,  and  in  that  sense 
a  continuous  narrative  of  its  history  cannot  be  final.  But  that  is  in  a 
sense  true  of  every  period  however  long,  and  this  has  a  unity  of  its 
own  —  a  natural  beginning  and  ending  —  which  makes  appropriate 
its  treatment  by  itself  at  least  as  preliminary  to  a  history  of  the 
whole  Middle  Ages. 

This  judgment  which  I  have  passed  on  the  condition  of  our  study 
of  the  earliest  period  of  medieval  history  demands  that  we  should 
recognize  the  fact  that  there  is  a  very  large  body  of  historical  happen- 
ings without  appreciable  influence  on  the  general  result;  that  very 
many  events  in  the  past,  of  interest  in  themselves,  might  not  have 
occurred  at  all,  or  might  have  occurred  in  some  quite  different  way, 
and  the  final  outcome,  the  decisive  result,  have  been  unmodified  in 
any  essential  matter.  We  may  understand  the  really  important 
contributory  work  of  an  age  or  a  generation  without  understanding 
every  detail  about  it.  That  this  is  so  I  cannot  here  stop  to  prove, 
but  I  expect  little  disagreement  with  this  view  from  students  of  his- 
tory whose  work  has  led  them  to  consider  the  contributions  of  one 
age  to  another,  or  to  study  carefully  the  larger  movements  of  history. 

To  those  of  us  who  have  in  our  hands  not  merely  the  directing  of 
our  own  productive  efforts,  in  which  perhaps  our  interests  are  now 
so  fixed  that  change  would  be  neither  advisable  nor  desirable,  but 
also  the  work  of  directing  by  personal  advice  and  the  selection  of 
topics  the  forming  interests  of  the  scholars  of  the  next  generation, 
the  question  is  one  of  great  responsibility.  Training  in  constructive 
work  is  not  easy.  The  power  of  comprehensive  vision  combined 
with  that  keen  insight  which  detects  the  true  historical  perspective 
is  the  gift  of  the  gods  rather  than  the  creation  of  the  teacher.  Nor 
would  I  overlook  the  fact  that  final  constructive  work  is  to  be  ex- 
pected only  from  the  man  who  has  been  thoroughly  trained  in  the 
methods  of  scientific  investigation,  and  whose  critical  judgment  has 
been  sharply  aroused  and  disciplined  in  the  process.  For  however 
brilliant  the  constructive  imagination  or  however  keen  the  historical 
insight,  if  they  be  not  guided  and  limited  by  a  thoroughly  disciplined 
critical  judgment  within  the  limits  of  known  facts,  they  will  prove 
to  be  snares  and  their  results  delusions  only.  We  must  also  add 
the  fact  that  from  the  limited  number  and  character  of  the  sources 
at  its  command  and  its  consequent  ability  to  create  in  many  cases 


130  MEDIEVAL  HISTORY 

almost  the  artificial  conditions  of  a  laboratory  experiment,  medieval 
history,  and  especially  the  first  half  of  it,  must  remain  the  best  of  all 
fields  for  training  in  scientific  investigation  and  the  discipline  of  the 
critical  faculty.  But  while  we  may  insist,  with  a  degree  of  justice 
that  is  likely  to  be  recognized  by  instructors  in  other  fields  of  history, 
that  the  future  historical  scholar  in  whatever  line  of  research  should 
receive  a  part  of  his  training  in  true  seminary  courses  in  medieval 
history,  that  is  quite  different  from  endeavoring  to  direct  the  life- 
work  of  the  student  into  the  earlier  half  of  that  period.  Should  it 
not  rather  be  our  endeavor  to  detect  among  those  who  come  under 
our  training  the  few  from  whom  constructive  work  of  a  high  order  of 
ability  may  be  expected,  and  by  such  means  as  we  can  use  and  with 
a  view  to  actual  attempts  at  such  a  history  of  this  age,  to  assist  in 
their  growth  in  the  comprehensive  grasp  of  a  whole  era  and  in  the 
power  to  judge  truly  the  relative  value  of  facts  which  are  chief 
among  the  qualities  demanded  in  final  historical  work? 

Will  you  allow  me  to  break  the  direct  thread  of  my  discourse  at 
this  point  to  say  that  to  the  instructor  in  medieval  history  at  least 
the  future  of  the  historical  seminary  presents  in  my  opinion  a  practical 
problem  of  some  seriousness.  The  prevailing,  I  may  almost  say  the 
fashionable  method  of  conducting  seminary  work  at  present  is  the 
essay  method  —  the  preparation  by  the  members  of  the  seminary  of 
set  essays  or  reports  on  assigned  topics.  The  essay  method  is  the 
best,  perhaps  the  only  method  of  teaching  constructive  work,  and 
for  this  purpose  it  should  be  employed.  Its  defects  are  the  great 
difficulty  of  combining  with  it  instruction  in  the  details  of  historical 
method  and  the  discipline  of  the  critical  faculty,  demanding  for  these 
results  qualities  in  the  instructor  which  are  not  common,  and  qualities 
in  the  student  which  are  still  more  rare,  at  least  in  America.  Its 
great  danger  consists  in  the  fact  that  it  is  the  easiest  of  all  methods 
with  which  to  get  an  appearance  of  success,  so  that  both  instructor 
and  student  may  plausibly  delude  themselves  with  the  belief  that 
they  are  doing  the  real  work  for  which  the  seminary  was  intended 
when  they  are  merely  devoting  themselves  to  what  should  be  the 
finishing  touches,  leaving  the  fundamental  work  undone.  I  mention 
this  briefly  and  only  in  passing,  but  I  believe  there  is  here  a  practical 
problem  that  demands  the  careful  consideration  of  the  university 
teacher  of  medieval  history. 

When  we  turn  from  the  first  to  the  second  half  of  the  Middle  Ages  we 
are  confronted  by  an  entirely  different  situation.  For  one  thing,  in  the 
past,  the  large  majority  of  the  ablest  men  who  have  devoted  them- 
selves to  the  study  of  medieval  history  have  found  the  first  half  of 
the  period,  for  reasons  perhaps  not  difficult  to  see,  far  more  attractive 
than  the  second,  and  have  not  hesitated  to  yield  to  this  attraction. 
While  this  is  perhaps  less  true  of  English  scholars  than  of  those  of 


PRESENT   PROBLEMS   OF   MEDIEVAL   HISTORY       131 

other  languages,  the  exception  is  not  great  enough  to  change  the 
rule.  Fewer  men  have  given  themselves  to  the  study  of  the  second 
than  to  that  of  the  first  half.  Nor  has  there  been  any  such  converging 
of  effort  on  a  single  Une  of  history  as  in  the  earlier  field.  Indeed,  such 
unity  of  interest  is  not  possible  in  the  later  period.  The  nations, 
whose  appearance  constitutes  the  dissolution  of  the  Frankish  Empire, 
separated  from  one  another  because  of  differences  of  condition,  and 
these  differences  increased  rather  than  diminished  after  their  separa- 
tion. The  scholars  of  each  nation  have  naturally  found  their  proper 
field  in  the  study  of  their  own  national  history.  And  while  there  is 
a  certain  similarity  in  the  larger  features  of  these  distinct  lines  of 
national  growth,  there  is  not  such  a  degree  of  likeness  that  what  is 
found  to  be  true  of  one  may  with  confidence  be  asserted  of  any  other. 

It  has  naturally  resulted  from  this  fact,  not  only  that  there  is 
a  larger  range  of  unexplored  or  only  partially  explored  territory  in 
the  later  period,  but  that  there  has  as  yet  been  formed  no  such  general 
consensus  of  opinion,  except  upon  here  and  there  a  single  point,  as  I 
have  asserted  to  exist  in  the  earlier.  Here  is  a  field  in  which  the  ardor 
and  enthusiasm  of  a  whole  generation  of  coming  historical  scholars 
may  find  profitable  employment  in  the  investigation  of  the  fact  as 
it  really  was,  if  the  present  generation  will  only  have  the  courage  to 
confess  that  work  of  real  importance  in  its  own  field  is  about  finished, 
and  to  turn  the  interests  of  the  rising  generation  as  completely  as 
possible  into  a  new  direction. 

The  incomplete  and  fragmentary  character  of  our  present  know- 
ledge in  the  second  half  of  medieval  history  as  compared  with  the 
first,  I  do  not  need,  I  am  sure,  even  to  illustrate.  In  narrative  history 
proper,  in  the  merely  political  history  of  states  and  dynasties,  how 
many  broad  gaps  are  there  not,  like  the  reigns  of  Edward  II,  of 
Henry  VI,  in  English  history,  as  yet  practically  unfilled  by  any 
minutely  critical  study.  How  much  of  the  whole  field  is  still  to  all 
intents  virgin  soil.  And  even  in  those  portions  which  have  been 
carefully  studied  in  detail,  the  reigns  of  William  the  Conqueror,  of 
John,  of  Henry  IV,  no  one  can  believe  the  work  to  be  yet  complete. 
However  minute  and  painstaking  may  be  the  study  of  the  man  who 
first  breaks  way  for  our  knowledge  of  an  age,  it  can  never  be  final. 
It  must  be  subjected  to  the  searching  examination  and  criticism  of 
other  scholars,  turned  to  this  light  and  to  that,  filled  out,  cut  away, 
and  reshaped,  before  we  reach  a  firmly  fixed  agreement  on  the  age, 
of  which  indeed  the  work  of  the  bahn-hrechenden  scholar  is  likely 
to  form  the  solid  foundation.  What  portion  of  the  narrative,  political 
history  of  the  later  Middle  Ages  has  yet  reached  this  stage? 

If  we  turn  to  the  institutional  history  of  the  period,  the  condition 
of  our  knowledge  is  equally  or  even  more  backward.  The  constitu- 
tions of  modern  states  excite  great  interest  and  have  been  or  are 


132  MEDIEVAL  HISTORY 

being  most  thoroughly  studied.  The  history  of  institutions  from 
Roman  days  to  the  triumph  of  feudahsm  may  be  called,  as  I  have 
said,  almost,  or  quite  a  completed  science.  Even  of  feudalism  itself, 
as  it  stood  established  in  the  thirteenth  century  on  the  eve  of  its  fall, 
we  may  assert  almost  as  much.  But  what  have  we  a  right  to  say  of 
the  age  that  follows.  And  yet  under  every  modern  constitution  lies 
feudalism.  The  age  of  feudal  decay  was  the  age  when  all  modern 
institutions  took  their  form,  when  the  direction  of  their  growth  was 
fixed,  and  when  those  momentous  differences  which  have  controlled 
the  peculiar  destinies  of  nations  were  determined.  What  can  we 
understand  of  the  origins  or  peculiarities  of  our  present  constitutions 
until  we  know  surely  under  what  conditions  and  into  what  forms  the 
feudal  constitution  of  a  given  nation  dissolved  itself.  Of  the  history 
of  England  this  is  especially  important,  because  of  the  wide  conquests 
in  other  lands  which  the  English  constitution  has  made  and  is  still 
destined  to  make;  and  yet  the  great  bulk  of  English  institutional 
history  as  it  exists  in  printed  form  traces  the  origins  of  that  constitu- 
tion back  to  theoretical,  imaginary,  or  largely  misunderstood  begin- 
nings in  Saxon  times.  And  if  the  judgment  of  the  scholars  of  the 
day  is  finding  a  sounder  basis  for  English  constitutional  history  in 
Frankish  rather  than  in  Saxon  institutions,  this  change  of  doctrine 
has  as  yet  made  but  little  impression  on  popular  opinion.  The 
process  needs  to  go,  however,  a  step  further  yet,  and  the  real  explana- 
tion of  the  more  important  peculiarities  of  the  English  constitution 
to  be  found  not  merely  in  Frankish  institutions  as  introduced  by  the 
Norman  conquest,  but  in  that  thorough  feudalism  which  accompanied 
or  shortly  followed  that  event. 

May  I  be  allowed  one  concrete  example.  The  right  of  impeachment, 
though  it  may  be  destined  to  longer  life  in  the  United  States  for 
purposes  different  from  those  for  which  it  was  originally  intended, 
is  practically  obsolete  in  England  itself,  owing  to  the  development 
of  the  cabinet  system,  but  it  is  of  great  historical  interest  for  its 
part  in  the  establishment  and  defense  of  the  constitution.  If  now 
we  look  critically  at  the  details  of  the  impeachment  process  we  shall 
find,  I  think,  so  peculiar  and  astonishing  a  process,  that  we  shall 
feel  justified  in  declaring  that  it  could  never  have  been  invented  de 
novo  by  any  absurd  freak  even  of  the  human  mind;  but  if  we  trace 
it  back  into  the  feudal  conditions  and  institutions  from  which  modern 
legislatures  arose,  we  see  at  once  how  naturally  and  simply  it  came 
into  being. 

In  the  study  which  has  already  been  given  to  the  transition  from 
the  medieval  constitution  to  the  modern,  those  features  which  seemed 
the  most  striking  have  received  the  most  attention,  —  the  position 
of  the  king,  the  development  of  a  legislative  system,  the  growth  of 
the  judiciary.    But  while  we  have  collected   on   these  subjects  a 


PRESENT  PROBLEMS  OF   MEDIEVAL   HISTORY       133 

large  body  of  knowledge  which  seems  firmly  established,  yet  it  will 
be  found  on  careful  analysis  that  considerable  portions  of  it  are 
based  on  general  views  rather  than  built  up  from  an  exact  knowledge 
of  detailed  fact.  Current  ideas  of  the  origin  of  the  representative 
system  are  based  mainly  on  the  surface  appearance  of  things,  and 
need  to  be  subjected  to  the  test  of  a  minute  analysis  of  sources. 
Scarcely  an  attempt  has  been  made  as  yet  to  trace  scientifically  the 
growth  of  what  may  be  called  the  national  feeling,  the  sense  of  a 
corporate  unity  in  the  community  as  over  against  the  king,  or  over 
against  the  government  of  the  state.  The  transformation  of  the 
feudal  baronage  into  a  social  nobility  is  popularly  set  much  too  late 
in  time  and  is  hardly  at  all  understood.  These  are  but  examples  of 
numerous  fields  that  remain  to  be  worked,  but  it  is  plain  that  we 
must  be  in  possession  of  the  results  of  the  study  of  them  before  we 
can  say  anything  final  of  the  origins  of  modern  constitutions.  The 
three  things  which  I  have  mentioned  constitute  indeed  the  very 
essence  of  the  transformation  of  the  medieval  into  the  modern  state. 
If  this  is  true  of  those  subjects  which  have  naturally  attracted  the 
first  attention  of  students,  it  is  yet  more  true  of  other  sides  of  the 
process.  Almost  the  whole  administrative  system — for  instance, 
the  rise  of  the  modern  governmental  departments,  the  development 
of  modern  out  of  feudal  taxation  —  is  practically  unknown  territory. 
Is  there  in  truth  a  single  institution  of  this  transition  period  of  which 
we  can  say  with  confidence  that  we  know  its  history  as  thoroughly 
as  we  do  most  of  the  institutions  of  the  Carolingian  or  of  the  early 
feudal  age? 

There  is  also  another  line  of  study,  representing  a  second  stage 
in  our  knowledge,  since  it  must  be  based  on  a  considerable  body  of 
already  established  fact,  in  which  only  a  beginning  has  been  made 
—  I  mean  the  comparative  study  of  institutions.  I  have  just  said 
that  history  in  the  second  half  of  the  Middle  Ages  divides  into  sepa- 
rate fields  along  national  lines  which  have  not  much  in  common  with 
one  another,  and  that  we  cannot  assert  with  confidence  that  what  we 
find  true  in  one  field  exists  in  another.  This  is  certainly  a  fact.  The 
comparative  method  itself  has  also  been  attacked  as  unsound  and  un- 
safe, and  it  must  be  admitted  that  it  leads  easily  to  abuses,  especially 
when  it  is  used  to  establish  the  unknown.  If,  however,  it  is  employed 
with  care  and  less  to  prove  what  was  the  fact  than  to  assist  us  to 
understand  what  we  already  partly  know,  it  has  an  important  and 
even  necessary  service  to  render.  The  feudalism  of  the  kingdom  of 
Jerusalem  throws  much  light  on  the  feudahsm  of  the  kingdom  of 
England.  The  curia  regis  was  transformed  in  many  states  and  in  the 
same  general  age  into  the  beginnings  of  the  modern  legislature. 
At  the  same  time  in  the  various  states  and  in  much  the  same  way, 
the  judicial  system,  the  administrative  machinery,  the  financial 


134  MEDIEVAL   HISTORY 

organization,  were  differentiated  from  one  another  out  of  the  older 
and  simpler  feudal  government.  It  must  be  true  that  this  process 
of  differentiation  in  one  state  had  much  of  similarity  with  that  in 
another,  and  while  we  shall  never  be  justified  in  saying  that  because 
we  are  certain  of  a  fact  in  French  history  we  must  therefore  find  it 
in  English,  we  have  a  right  to  expect  a  comparison  of  results  to 
clarify  our  knowledge,  to  help  us  in  the  understanding  and  arrange- 
ment of  details,  and  even  to  point  out  to  us  where  to  look  and  what 
to  look  for.  Here  then  is  another  large  field  of  work  in  which  already 
something  has  been  done,  but  hardly  more  than  enough  to  show 
what  is  possible. 

It  would  be  possible  to  point  out  still  further  work  that  needs  to 
be  done  in  the  second  half  of  the  Middle  Ages.  I  have  taken  my 
illustrations  from  the  field  of  political  history,  which  is  the  peculiar 
field  of  this  Section,  and  their  form  has  been  determined  by  my  own 
special  interest;  but  the  ecclesiastical,  intellectual,  economic,  artistic, 
and  scientific  revolutions  of  that  period  were  not  less  decisive  than 
the  political  and  institutional,  nor  is  a  thorough  understanding  of 
them  less  essential  to  our  knowledge  of  the  age.  The  same  work 
must  be  done  in  all  these  directions,  and  the  results  brought  into 
form  for  combination  in  a  common  whole  before  the  period  of  pre- 
paration can  be  ended.  Here  is  surely  work  of  the  very  highest  order 
for  a  generation,  for  a  half-century,  of  historical  investigation.  The 
militant  progressive  historical  scholarship  of  the  first  half  of  the 
twentieth  century,  in  so  far  as  it  deals  with  the  Middle  Ages,  should 
find  in  the  last  five  hundred  years  of  that  field  the  place  to  apply 
with  rich  results  the  keen  critical  insight,  the  skilled  historical 
judgment,  which  should  still  be  trained  in  the  study  of  the  first  five 
hundred  years.  Perhaps  it  may  be  thought  that  fifty  years  is  too 
short  a  time  in  which  to  bring  our  knowledge  of  these  centuries  to 
a  practical  completion,  but  if  we  take  account  of  what  has  been 
done  in  our  knowledge  of  the  earlier  period  in  the  last  fifty  years, 
and  especially  if  we  consider  the  amount  of  surely  established 
knowledge  with  which  Waitz  and  Roth  began  what  it  is  not  too 
much  to  call  the  first  scientific  study  of  the  Middle  Ages,  and  com- 
pare it  with  that  with  which  we  may  now  begin  our  study  of  the 
later  period,  we  have  every  reason  to  look  forward  to  the  practical 
completion  of  our  task  in  but  little  more  than  the  lifetime  of  a 
modern  generation.  Then  it  will  be  possible  for  a  definitive  work  to 
be  written  on  the  whole  of  the  Middle  Ages.  Then  we  may  hope  to 
understand  with  some  completeness  the  origins  of  modern  govern- 
ments and  to  be  able  to  find  the  historical  explanation  of  their 
peculiarities. 

At  the  beginning  of  this  paper  I  spoke  of  certain  lines  of  investiga- 
tion as  likely  to  lead  to  the  largest  new  results  in  our  field.   The  pro- 


PRESENT  PROBLEMS  OF   MEDIEVAL  HISTORY       135 

fessed  historian  is  not  the  only  student  of  the  problems  of  medieval 
history.  A  large  amount  of  work  is  being  done  upon  them  and  more 
will  be  done  in  the  future  by  two  groups  of  scholars  who  are  not,  in 
their  opinion  at  least,  of  his  guild,  by  the  economic  historian  and  by 
the  sociologist.  And  the  fact  that  these  scholars  do  not  always  look 
at  our  problems  from  quite  our  point  of  view  or  formulate  them  in 
quite  our  terms  has  its  own  advantages.  Much  of  their  work  is  cer- 
tain to  be  of  a  sort  which  the  scientific  historian  cannot  approve, 
but  in  the  end,  it  is  my  firm  belief  that  we  have  to  expect  from  their 
labors  more  light  on  the  difficulties  still  remaining  in  the  first  half 
of  medieval  history  than  from  any  efforts  of  our  own,  very  great 
help  in  solving  the  problems  of  the  second  half,  and  throughout 
the  whole  period  much  assistance  in  reaching  a  better  understanding 
of  what  is  already  well  established.  The  economic  historian  should 
indeed  consider  himself  — and  many  of  them  do — primarily  an  his- 
torian. He  should  be  as  thoroughly  trained  in  the  methods  of  his- 
torical research  as  the  historian  and  as  scrupulously  bound  by  them. 
In  his  study  of  the  facts  it  should  be  his  first  and  highest  ambition 
to  ascertafn  "wie  es  eigentlich  gewesen."  In  all  this  he  should  be 
the  historian,  but  he  should  be  more  than  this.  With  a  training  in 
economic  science  equal  to  that  which  he  has  received  in  historical 
method,  he  should  be  able  to  detect  in  many  crises  of  history  more 
quickly  and  clearly  than  we  can  the  presence  of  decisive  economic 
factors,  and  be  able  to  explain  their  action  in  such  a  way  that  we  shall 
come  to  understand  more  perfectly  the  result  produced.  That  there 
are  many  places  in  the  history  of  the  Middle  Ages  where  work  of  this 
sort  is  greatly  needed  will  be  instantly  admitted.  Beginnings  have 
been  made  through  the  whole  period,  but  except  here  and  there 
nothing  but  beginnings.  The  origin  of  feudalism  and  its  fall;  the 
transformation  of  the  slave  into  the  serf  and  of  the  serf  into  the  free 
laborer;  the  effects  of  the  scarcity  of  money  and  of  its  revived  use; 
the  decline  and  recovery  of  commerce;  the  rise  of  the  third  estate 
and  the  renewal  by  the  state  of  regular  taxation;  these  are  general 
topics  whose  mere  mention  suggests  the  useful  service  which  the  eco- 
nomic historian  has  rendered  or  may  still  render.  Minor  topics,  like 
the  question  of  the  commercial  factors  in  England's  parliamentary 
advance  in  the  fourteenth  century,  are  innumerable.  It  is  hardly 
necessary  to  say  that  the  professed  historian  welcomes  most  heartily 
such  work  upon  the  problems  he  is  trying  to  solve,  that  he  stands 
ready  to  afford  it  every  encouragement,  and  to  incorporate  its 
results  with  his  own  or  to  modify  his  own  by  them  whenever  neces- 
sary. He  sometimes  finds  the  tone  in  which  they  are  expressed 
a  trifle  trying,  but  that  is  not  a  serious  matter.  It  is  characteristic 
of  a  young  science  to  exalt  itself,  to  magnify  the  importance  of  its 
results  and  the  necessity  of  its  processes.    More  serious  is  the  tend- 


136  MEDIEVAL   HISTORY 

ency,  of  which  there  have  been  many  examples,  and  which  some- 
times seems  as  if  it  were  inevitable  in  the  economic  historian,  to 
stop  the  process  of  investigation  too  soon,  in  order  to  theorize,  or 
to  attempt  to  explain  the  facts  before  they  are  understood.  Would  it 
be  unfair  to  say  that  in  proportion  as  economic  training  predominates 
over  historical,  in  such  proportion  is  this  tendency  present?  How- 
ever this  may  be,  it  is  true  that  against  the  tendency  to  theorize  too 
soon  there  is  only  one  effectual  safeguard,  and  that  is  the  thorough 
discipline  of  the  critical  judgment,  which  it  should  be  the  business 
of  historical  training  to  impart  to  the  point  where  the  mind  may  be 
trusted  instinctively  to  know  when  the  fact  is  well  established  and 
when  it  is  still  more  or  less  doubtful.  In  any  case  the  historian  should 
not  yield  to  the  temptation  to  judge  this  tendency  more  severely  in 
the  economic  historian  than  in  imperfectly  trained  members  of  his 
own  company,  and  he  should  be  ready  as  in  their  case  to  separate 
the  real  result  from  the  premature  explanation.  While  I  desire  to 
express  strongly,  as  I  have  done,  my  belief  that  we  have  such  a  gain 
from  these  investigations,  I  am  also  desirous  of  repeating  emphatically 
my  earlier  statement  that  in  my  opinion  none  of  the  more  important 
results  which  the  historian  has  dlready  reached  concerning  the  facts 
of  the  first  half  of  the  Middle  Ages  is  likely  to  be  overturned  or  seri- 
ously modified  by  the  study  of  economic  history. 

With  the  sociologist  we  have  a  less  close  relationship,  and  from  him 
we  have  to  expect  much  more  that  is  not  so  directly  historical.  We 
have  indeed,  I  think,  a  strong  tendency  to  look  on  his  invasion  of 
our  preserves  with  suspicion.  The  economist's  tendency  to  explain 
seems  carried  in  the  sociologist  to  an  extreme  which  it  is  impossible 
to  resist,  and  the  numerous  premature  attempts  which  he  has 
already  made  to  formulate  the  fundamental  laws  of  history,  or  to 
propound  its  final  philosophy,  give  us  good  ground  for  suspicion. 
We  remember  that  such  attempts  to  explain  history  philosophically 
were  very  numerous  in  the  infancy  of  our  own  branch  of  learning  — 
as  speculation  is  perhaps  in  the  infancy  of  all  learning;  we  see  very 
quickly  that  the  sociological  historian  is  not  always  trained  in  the 
methods  of  historical  criticism,  that  he  is  apt  to  get  his  knowledge 
of  facts  at  second-hand,  and  often  imperfectly,  with  frequent  mis- 
understandings, and  with  a  strong  tendency  to  take  them  from  one- 
sided and  partial  students  who  exaggerate  the  historical  factors  in 
which  the  sociologist  is  himself  most  interested,  —  and  that  he 
often  regards  as  established  facts  the  conclusions  of  some  single 
scholar  whom  no  one  follows;  and  we  are  tempted  to  suspect  that 
metaphysical  phraseology  sometimes  conceals  a  lack  of  clear  and 
definite  thinking. 

If  I  have  stated  these  points  of  criticism  strongly,  it  is  in  no  un- 
friendly spirit.    It  is  rather  because  I  believe  so  firmly  in  the  great 


PRESENT  PROBLEMS   OF   MEDIEVAL   HISTORY       137 

service  which  these  studies  may  render  to  our  own  if  only  the  method 
is  historical  when  the  problem  is  historical  —  a  service  so  great 
that  without  the  work  of  the  economic  historian  and  the  sociologist, 
the  task  of  completing  our  scientific  knowledge  of  medieval  history 
seems  to  me  almost  impossible.  What  their  method  should  be  in 
the  study  of  problems  not  historical,  I  do  not  presume  to  say. 

But  from  the  work  of  the  sociologist  in  two  different  fields  at  least, 
lying  at  the  two  extremes  of  history,  we  have,  I  think,  to  expect  light 
on  the  difficulties  of  medieval  history.  The  first  we  call  the  pre- 
historic field,  the  study  of  primitive  man,  the  earliest  institutional 
development  of  the  race.  The  term  prehistoric  is,  of  course,  in  one 
sense  a  misnomer.  The  investigation  of  primitive  institutions  is 
really  a  study  in  history.  It  differs  from  the  study  of  medieval 
institutions  only  in  the  character  of  the  material  from  which  con- 
clusions must  be  drawn,  but  as  a  field  clearly  distinct  in  itself  it  is 
now  generally  recognized  as  the  province  of  the  sociologist,  and  to 
this  there  can  be  no  objection.  Here  is  an  ample  opportunity  for 
truly  scientific  work,  and  much  has  already  been  made  of  it.  From 
its  results  light  is  to  be  expected  on  many  details  of  medieval  civil- 
ization, manners,  practices,  and  beliefs  in  daily  life,  in  government, 
law,  and  religion.  Even  modern  society  shows  many  survivals  of 
primitive  ideas,  and  medieval  many  more.  The  investigation  of  these 
subjects  will  fill  out  and  enrich  our  knowledge  of  details,  but  they 
are  not  likely  to  affect  the  more  important  conclusions  of  historians. 
•From  the  other  field  of  sociological  study,  the  study  of  present  society, 
we  have,  I  think,  far  more  of  importance  to  expect.  We  may  not  agree 
in  full  with  the  dictum  that  we  can  only  know  history  by  knowing 
present  society,  but  the  value  of  such  a  knowledge  is  obvious.  The 
social  reasons  for  things  are  far  more  easily  discovered  from  a  study 
of  present  than  from  a  study  of  past  conditions,  and  social  reasons 
probably  have  a  larger  share  in  the  explanation  of  results  than  we 
historians  have  always  been  inclined  to  allow.  At  any  rate  light  on 
social  organization,  movements  of  population,  the  operation  of  race 
as  an  active  historical  factor,  the  influence  of  sanitary  conditions, 
the  sources  of  ideas  of  morality,  religion,  and  law,  and  the  methods 
of  their  growth,  and  a  dozen  other  equally  important  subjects  will 
be  very  welcome  to  us.  The  results  of  the  sociologist's  work,  when 
they  are  put  in  form  for  us,  will  assist  us  less  in  determining  what  the 
fact  was  —  that  is  primarily  our  work  —  than  in  understanding  it 
when  known.  They  will  be  confirmatory  and  enlightening  rather 
than  revolutionary,  but  no  less  important  on  that  account. 

In  conclusion,  let  me  congratulate  all  workers  in  medieval  history, 
whether  they  are  working  directly  or  indirectly,  whether  they  bear 
the  name  of  historian  or  not,  on  the  great  results  which  have  been 
achieved  in  our  field  in  the  last  fifty  years,  and  still  more  on  the  out- 


138  MEDIEVAL  HISTORY 

look  for  the  coming  half-century.  It  is  a  great  epoch  in  the  history 
of  any  science  when  it  begins  to  see  in  clear  detail  the  road  which 
it  must  follow  to  the  not  distant  goal  —  not  to  the  knowledge 
of  every  fact,  but  to  the  completion  of  its  most  important  task.  It 
should  be  to  every  traveler  on  the  way  a  broadening  and  inspiring 
vision. 


SUPPLEMENTARY   PAPERS 

A  short  paper  was  contributed  to  this  Section  by  Professor  Earl  W.  Dow,  of  the 
University  of  Michigan,  and  Secretary  of  the  Section,  on  "The  Early  Commune 
and  the  Local  Secular  Law  at  Beauvais,"  in  which  the  story  of  the  suit  of  the 
canons  at  Beauvais  was  set  forth  in  a  new  and  attractive  form  and  much  light 
thrown  upon  the  ecclesiastical  laws  of  the  age.  Supplementary  to  this  was  an 
interesting  discussion  of  the  development  of  the  Commune  at  Beauvais  and  the 
local  statutes  governing  its  administration. 

A  short  paper  was  also  presented  before  this  Section  by  Professor  N.  M.  Tren- 
holme,  of  the  University  of  Missouri,  entitled,  "A  Communication  Relative  to 
the  English  Monastic  Towns."  The  paper  discussed  briefly  the  establishment 
under  monastic  control  during  the  early  Middle  Ages  of  a  number  of  important 
towns  usually  attached  to  some  of  the  greater  Benedictine  abbeys,  with  special 
privileges  and  immunities  confirmed  by  charters  or  gifts.  The  origin  of  these 
towns,  the  conflicts  between  ecclesiastical  and  lay  authorities,  and  the  law3 
governing  these  special  privileges  were  clearly  and  forcibly  set  forth. 


SECTION  D 
MODERN  HISTORY  OF  EUROPE 


SECTION   D 
MODERN  HISTORY  OF    EUROPE 


{Hall  3,  September  22,  10  a.  m.) 

Chairman:  Honorable  James  B.  Perkins,  Rochester,  N.  Y. 
Speakers:  Professor  J.  B.  Bury,  University  of  Camljridge. 

Professor  Charles  W.  Colby,  McGill  University,  Montreal. 
Secretary:  Professor  Ferdinand  Schwill,  University  of  Chicago. 

The  Section  of  Modern  History  of  Europe  was  presided  over  by 
Honorable  James  B.  Perkins,  of  Rochester,  New  York.  In  introduc- 
ing the  speakers  the  Chairman  stated  that  no  period  in  the  long 
record  of  man's  development  has  greater  interest  to  the  historical 
student  than  that  which  we  roughly  classify  as  the  modern  history 
of  Europe.  In  it  we  have  scientific  discoveries  and  modifications 
of  religious  belief,  which  have  changed  our  theories  of  man's  place  in 
nature  and  of  his  relations  to  the  powers  which  control  nature;  we 
have  developments  in  political  science,  which  have  replaced  the  forms 
of  government  that  prevailed  three  centuries  ago  by  the  govern- 
ments of  popular  rule  which  now  exist  in  the  most  advanced  nations 
of  the  world.  These  also  may  be  modified  in  the  future,  but  they  will 
never  return  to  the  forms  of  the  past.  We  have  industrial  changes,  that 
have  altered  not  only  the  economic  but  the  social  character  of  society. 
The  study  of  such  a  period  demands  the  highest  faculties  of  the 
historian  and  affords  possibilities  of  the  most  fruitful  return. 


THE  PLACE  OF  MODERN  HISTORY  IN  THE  PERSPECTIVE 
OF   KNOWLEDGE 

BY    JOHN    B.    BURY 

[John  B.  Bury,  Professor  of  Modem  History,  Cambridge  University,  b.  Oct.  16, 
1861.  B.A.  Trinity  College,  Dublin,  1882;  Fellow,  ibid.  1885;  M.A.  i6id.  1885; 
Professor  of  Modem  History,  Dublin  University,  1893-98;  Professor  of  Greek, 
ibid.  1898-1902;   Professor  of  Modem  History,  Cambridge  University,  1902- 

.    Author  of  History  of  the  Later  Roman  Empire,  from,  Arcadius  to  Irene; 

Student's  History  of  the  Roman  Empire,  from  Augustus  to  Marcus  Aurelius ; 
History  of  Greece  to  Deaih  of  Alexander  the  Great.  Editor  of  Pindar's  Isthmian 
Odes;  and  Nemean  Odes;  Freeman's  History  of  Federal  Government  in  Greece; 
Gibbon's  Decline  and  Fall  of  the  Roman  Empire.] 

To  define  the  position  which  the  history  of  the  last  four  hundred 
years  occupies  as  an  object  of  study,  or  to  signahze  its  particular 
importance  as  a  field  of  intellectual  activity,  requires  a  preliminary 
consideration  of  the  place  which  history  in  general  holds  in  the 
domain  of  human  knowledge.  And  this  consideration  cannot  be 
confined  to  purely  political  history.  For  political  history  is  only  an 
abstraction,  —  an  abstraction  which  is  useful  and  necessary  both 
practically  and  theoretically,  but  is  unable  to  serve  as  the  basis 
of  a  philosophical  theory.  Political  development  in  the  chronicle  of 
a  society,  or  set  of  societies,  is  correlated  with  other  developments 
which  are  not  political;  the  concrete  history  of  a  society  is  the 
collective  history  of  all  its  various  activities,  all  the  manifestations 
of  its  intellectual,  emotional,  and  material  life.  We  isolate  these 
manifestations  for  the  purpose  of  analysis,  as  the  physiologist  can 
concentrate  his  attention  on  a  single  organ  apart  from  the  rest  of  the 
body;  but  we  must  not  forget  that  political  history  out  of  relation 
to  the  whole  social  development  of  which  it  is  a  part  is  not  less 
unmeaning  than  the  heart  detached  from  the  body. 

The  inevitable  and  perfectly  justifiable  habit  of  tracing  political 
development  by  itself,  and  making  political  events  chronological 
landmarks,  led  to  an  unfortunate  restriction  of  the  use  of  the  word 
history,  which,  when  used  without  qualification,  is  commonly  taken 
to  mean  political  history,  and  not  history  in  the  larger  concrete 
sense  which  I  have  just  defined.  This  ambiguity  furnishes  an  ex- 
planation and  excuse  for  the  view  that  history  is  subservient  to 
political  science,  and  that  the  only  or  main  value  of  historical  study 
consists  in  its  auxiliary  services  to  the  study  of  political  science. 
This  doctrine  was  propagated,  for  instance,  by  Seeley,  and  gained 
some  adhesion  in  England.  Now  if  we  detach  the  growth  of  political 
institutions  and  the  sequence  of  political  events  from  all  the  other 
social  phenomena,  and  call  this  abstraction  history,  then  I  think 


THE  PLACE  OF   MODERN   HISTORY  143 

Seeley's  theory  would  have  considerable  justification.  History,  in 
such  a  sense,  would  have  very  httle  worth  or  meaning  beyond  its 
use  as  supplying  material  for  the  inductions  of  political  science,  the 
importance  of  which  I  should  be  the  last  to  dispute.  But  if  the 
political  sequence  is  grasped  as  only  one  part  of  the  larger  develop- 
ment which  constitutes  history  in  the  fuller  sense,  then  it  is  clear 
that  the  study  of  political  history  has  its  sufficient  title  and  justifica- 
tion by  virtue  of  its  relation  to  that  larger  development  which 
includes  it,  and  that  it  is  not  merely  the  handmaid  of  political 
science.  Political  science  depends  upon  its  data,  and,  in  return, 
illuminates  it;  but  does  not  confer  its  title-deeds. 

But  a  larger  and  more  formidable  wave,  threatening  the  liberty 
of  history,  has  still  to  be  encountered.  It  may  be  argued  that  the 
relation  of  dependence  holds  good,  though  it  must  be  stated  in  a 
different  and  more  scientific  form.  It  may  be  said :  Political  science 
is  a  branch  of  social  science,  just  as  political  history  is  a  part  of 
general  history;  and  the  object  of  studying  general  history  is  simply 
and  solely  to  collect  and  furnish  material  for  sociological  science. 
Thus  the  former  theory  reappears,  subsumed  under  a  higher  prin- 
ciple. The  study  of  history  generally  is  subordinate  to  sociology; 
and  it  follows  that  the  study  of  political  history  especially  is  sub- 
ordinate to  that  branch  of  sociology  which  we  call  political  science. 
The  difference,  and  it  is  a  very  important  difference,  is  that,  on  this 
theory,  political  history  is  no  longer  isolated;  its  relations  of  coor- 
dination and  interdependence  with  the  other  sides  of  social  develop- 
ment would  be  recognized  and  emphasized.  But  the  study  of  general 
history,  including  political,  would  be  dependent  on,  and  ancillary 
to,  a  study  ulterior  to  itself. 

Now  this  theory  seems  to  run  counter  to  an  axiom  which  has  been 
frequently  enunciated  and  accepted  as  self-evident  in  recent  times, 
namely,  that  history  should  be  studied  for  its  own  sake.  It  is  one 
of  the  remarkable  ideas  which  first  emerged  explicitly  into  con- 
sciousness in  the  last  century  that  the  unique  series  of  the  phenomena 
of  human  development  is  worthy  to  be  studied  for  itself,  without 
any  ulterior  purpose,  without  any  obligation  to  serve  ethical  or 
theological,  or  any  practical  ends.  This  principle  of  "history  for  its 
own  sake"  might  be  described  as  the  motto  or  watchword  of  the 
great  movement  of  historical  research  which  has  gone  on  increasing 
in  volume  and  power  since  the  beginning  of  the  last  century.  But 
has  this  principle  a  theoretical  justification,  or  is  it  only  an  expedient 
but  indefensible  fiction  instinctively  adopted?  Is  the  postulate  of 
"history  for  its  own  sake"  simply  a  regulative  idea  which  we  find  it 
convenient  to  accept  because  experience  teaches  us  that  independence 
is  the  only  basis  on  which  any  study  can  be  pursued  satisfactorily  and 
scientifically;    and  while  we  accord  history  this  status,  for  reasons 


144  MODERN   HISTORY    OF   EUROPE 

of  expedience,  is  it  yet  true  tliat  the  ultimate  and  only  value  of 
the  study  lies  in  its  potential  services  to  another  discipline,  such 
as  sociology? 

It  seems  to  me  that  our  decision  of  this  question  must  fall  out 
according  to  the  view  we  take  of  the  relation  of  man's  historical 
development  to  the  whole  of  reality.  We  are  brought  face  to  face 
with  a  philosophical  problem.  Our  apprehension  of  history  and  our 
reason  for  studying  it  must  be  ultimately  determined  by  the  view  we 
entertain  of  the  moles  et  machina  mundi  as  a  whole.  Naturalism  will 
imply  a  wholly  different  view  from  idealism.  In  considering  the 
place  of  history  in  the  kingdom  of  knowledge,  it  is  thus  impossible 
to  avoid  referring  to  the  questions  with  which  the  so-called  philo- 
sophy of  history  is  concerned. 

If  human  development  can  be  entirely  explained  on  the  general 
lines  of  a  system  such  as  Saint-Simon's  or  Comte's  or  Spencer's,  then 
I  think  we  must  conclude  that  the  place  of  history,  within  the  frame 
of  such  a  system,  is  subordinate  to  sociology  and  anthropology. 
There  is  no  separate  or  independent  precinct  in  which  she  can  pre- 
side supreme.  But  on  an  idealistic  interpretation  of  knowledge,  it  is 
otherwise.  History  then  assumes  a  different  meaning  from  that  of 
a  higher  zoology,  and  is  not  merely  a  continuation  of  the  process  of 
evolution  in  nature.  If  thought  is  not  the  result,  but  the  presup- 
position, of  the  process  of  nature,  it  follows  that  history,  in  which 
thought  is  the  characteristic  and  guiding  force,  belongs  to  a  different 
order  of  ideas  from  the  kingdom  of  nature  and  demands  a  different 
interpretation.  Here  the  philosophy  of  history  comes  in.  The  very 
phrase  is  a  flag  over  debated  ground.  It  means  the  investigation 
of  the  rational  principles  which,  it  is  assumed,  are  disclosed  in  the 
historical  process  due  to  the  cooperation  and  interaction  of  human 
minds  under  terrestrial  conditions.  If  the  philosophy  of  history  is  not 
illusory,  history  means  a  disclosure  of  spiritual  reality  in  the  fullest 
way  in  which  it  is  cognizable  to  us  in  these  particular  conditions. 
And,  on  the  other  hand,  the  possibility  of  an  interpretation  of  history 
as  a  movement  of  reason,  disclosing  its  nature  in  terrestrial  circum- 
stances, seems  the  only  hypothesis  on  which  the  postulate  of  "history 
for  its  own  sake  "  can  be  justified  as  valid. 

This  fundamental  problem  belongs  to  philosophy  and  lies  outside 
the  scope  of  discussion.  All  that  can  be  done  for  the  present  occasion 
is  to  assume  the  validity  of  that  kind  of  interpretation  which  is 
generally  called  the  philosophy  of  history,  and,  starting  with  this 
postulate,  to  show  the  particular  significance  of  modem  history. 
Perhaps  it  may  be  said  that  such  interpretation  is  quite  a  separate 
branch  of  speculation,  distinct  from  history  itself,  and  not  necessarily 
the  concern  of  an  historical  student.  That  is  a  view  which  should 
be  dismissed,  for  it  reduces  history  to  a  collection  of  annals.    Facts 


THE  PLACE  OF   MODERN   HISTORY  145 

must  be  collected,  and  connected,  before  they  can  be  interpreted; 
but  I  cannot  imagine  the  sUghtest  theoretical  importance  in  a  collec- 
tion of  facts  or  sequences  of  facts,  unless  they  mean  something  in 
terms  of  reason,  unless  we  can  hope  to  determine  their  vital  con- 
nection in  the  whole  system  of  reality.  This  is  the  fundamental 
truth  underlying  Macaulay's  rather  drastic  remark  that  "facts  are 
the  dross  of  history." 

It  is  to  be  observed  that  the  idea  of  historv  as  a  self-centred 
study  for  its  own  sake  arose  without  any  consciousness  of  further 
implications,  without  any  overt  reference  to  philosophical  theory  or 
the  systematization  of  knowledge.  It  appeared  as  an  axiom  which 
at  once  recommended  itself  as  part  of  the  general  revolutionary 
tendency  of  every  branch  of  knowledge  to  emancipate  itself  from 
external  control  and  manage  its  own  concerns.  While  this  idea 
was  gaining  ground,  a  large  number  of  interpretations  or  "philo- 
sophies" of  history  were  launched  upon  the  world,  from  Germany, 
France,  England,  and  elsewhere.  They  were  nearly  all  constructed 
by  philosophers,  not  by  historians;  they  were  consequently  con- 
ditioned by  the  nature  of  the  various  philosophical  systems  from 
which  they  were  generated;  and  they  did  a  great  deal  to  bring  the 
general  idea  of  a  philosophy  of  histor}'^  into  discredit  and  create  the 
suspicion  that  such  an  idea  is  illusory.  I  observe  with  interest  that 
this  Congress,  in  the  Department  of  Philosophy,  assigns  a  section 
to  the  Philosophy  of  Religion  but  not  to  the  Philosophy  of  History. 
I  feel,  therefore,  the  less  compunction,  that  my  argument  compels 
me  to  make  some  remarks  about  it  here. 

I  need  hardlj'^  remind  you  that  the  radical  defect  of  all  these 
philosophical  reconstructions  of  history  is  that  the  framework  is 
always  made  a  'priori,  with  the  help  of  a  superficial  induction.  The 
principles  of  development  are  superimposed  upon  the  phenomena, 
instead  of  being  given  by  the  phenomena;  and  the  authors  of  the 
schemes  had  no  thorough  or  penetrative  knowledge  of  the  facts 
which  they  undertook  to  explain,  Bossuet  boldly  built  his  theory 
of  universal  history  on  the  hardly  disguised  axiom  that  mankind 
was  created  for  the  sake  of  the  Church;  but  nearly  all  the  specu- 
lative theories  of  historical  development  framed  in  the  nineteenth 
century,  though  less  crudely  subjective,  fall  into  the  same  kind  of 
fallacy. 

Two  of  the  most  notable  attempts  to  trace  the  rational  element 
in  the  general  movement  of  humanity  were  those  of  Hegel  and 
Krause.  They  are  both  splendid  failures,  Hegel's  more  manifestly  so. 
They  are  both  marked  by  an  insufficient  knowledge  of  facts  and 
details,  but  in  imposing  his  a  'priori  framework  Hegel  is  far  more 
mercilessly  Procrustean  than  Krause.  It  was  the  modem  period 
which  suffered  most  painfully  through  Hegel's  attempt  to  screw  his- 


146  MODERN   HISTORY  OF   EUROPE 

tory  into  his  iron  bed.  His  scheme  implies  that  the  modem  period 
represents  the  completion  of  historical  development,  is  part  of  the 
last  act  in  the  drama  of  the  human  spirit.  This  implication  is  pre- 
posterous. What  we  know  about  the  future  is  that  man  has  an 
indefinite  time  in  front  of  him,  and  it  is  absurd  to  suppose  that  in 
the  course  of  that  time  new  phases  of  thought  will  not  be  realized, 
though  it  is  quite  impossible  for  us  to  predetermine  them.  This  error 
alone  is  sufficient  to  cast  suspicion  on  the  whole  edifice.  For  the 
stages  of  history,  as  a  revelation  of  spirit,  correspond  ex  hypothesi 
to  the  dialectical  stages  in  the  lo^cal  evolution  of  the  idea;  and  if 
Hegel  fixes  the  terminus  of  the  historical  evolution  at  a  point  im- 
measurably distant  from  the  true  term,  it  evidently  follows  that  the 
correspondences  which  he  has  established  for  the  preceding  stages 
wath  stages  in  the  logical  evolution  must  be  wholly  or  partly  wrong, 
and  his  interpretation  breaks  down.  The  keys  are  in  the  wrong  locks. 
Krause's  system,  which  has  had  considerable  influence  in  Belgium, 
avoids  the  absurdity  of  not  allowing  for  progress  in  the  future,  — 
a  consideration  which  there  was  no  excuse  for  ignoring,  since  it  had 
been  recognized  and  emphasized  by  Condorcet.  He  divides  the  whole 
of  human  history,  including  that  which  is  yet  to  come,  into  three 
great  periods,  —  the  ages  of  unity,  of  variety,  and  of  harmony,  — 
and  pronounces  that  mankind  is  now  in  the  third  and  last  stage  of 
the  second  period.  This  theory,  you  perceive,  has  an  advantage 
over  Hegel's  in  that  it  gives  the  indefinite  future  something  to  do. 
But,  although  this  Procrustes  is  more  merciful,  the  Procrustean 
principle  is  the  same;  there  is  an  a  priori  system  into  which  human 
development  has  to  be  constrained.  I  am  not  concerned  here  to 
criticise  the  method  on  which  Krause  proceeds;  I  only  want  to  illus- 
trate by  two  notable  examples,  that  of  Hegel  who  ignores  the  future, 
and  that  of  Krause  who  presumes  to  draw  its  horoscope,  how  the 
philosophy  of  history  has  moved  on  false  lines,  through  the  illusion 
that  it  could  construct  the  development  of  reason  in  history  from 
any  other  source  than  history  itself.  By  the  one  example  we  are 
taught  that,  in  attempting  to  interpret  history,  we  must  remember 
there  is  no  such  thing  as  finality  within  measurable  distance: 

His  ego  nee  metas  rerum  nee  tempora  pono; 

while  the  other  example  warns  us  that  in  considering  the  past  it  is 
idle  to  seek  to  explain  it  by  any  synthesis  involving  speculations  on 
the  inscrutable  content  of  the  future. 

It  is,  indeed,  curious  to  note  how  the  authors  of  the  numerous 
attempts  to  present  a  philosophical  construction  of  history,  which 
appeared  during  the  nineteenth  century,  assume,  so  naively,  that 
their  own  interpretations  are  final,  and  that  the  ideas  which  are 
within  the  horizon  of  their  minds  are  the  ultimate  ideas  to  be  sighted 


THE   PLACE   OF   MODERN   HISTORY  147 

by  man,  the  last  ports  to  be  visited  in  his  voyage  down  the  stream  of 
time.  It  is  strange  how  this  childish  delusion,  this  spell  of  the  present, 
has  blinded  the  profoundest  thinkers.  Hegel  thought  that  the  final 
form  of  political  constitution  was  something  closely  resembling  the 
Prussian  state,  that  the  final  religion  is  Christianity,  that  the  final 
philosophy  is  his  own.  This  was  logical  in  his  case,  because  it  was 
part  of  his  view  that  the  plenitude  of  time  has  come;  yet  we  can  have 
very  little  doubt  that  this  doctrine  was  prompted  psychologically 
by  what  I  have  called  the  spell  of  the  present.  But  even  those  who 
were  able,  in  phrase  at  least,  to  transcend  the  present  and  look 
forward  to  indefinite  progress,  speak  and  argue  nevertheless  as  if 
the  ideas  which  are  now  accessible  and  within  the  range  of  our  vision 
could  never  be  transcended  in  the  course  of  the  progress  which 
they  admit.  The  absurdity  of  this  view  is  illustrated  by  reflecting 
that  the  ideas  with  which  these  writers  conjured  —  such  as  humanity, 
liberty,  progress,  in  the  pregnant  meanings  which  those  words  now 
possess  —  were  beyond  men's  horizon  a  few  centuries  before.  We 
must  face  the  fact  that  our  syntheses  and  interpretations  can  have 
only  a  relative  value,  and  that  the  still  latent  ideas  which  must 
emerge  in  the  process  of  the  further  development  of  man  will  intro- 
duce new  and  higher  controlling  conceptions  for  the  interpretation 
of  the  past. 

I  have  pointed  out  the  common  error  into  which  philosophies  of 
history  have  fallen,  through  not  perceiving  that  in  order  to  lay  bare 
the  spiritual  process  which  history  represents,  we  must  go  to  history 
itself  without  any  a  priori  assumptions  or  predetermined  systems. 
All  that  philosophy  can  do  is  to  assure  us  that  historical  experience 
is  a  disclosure  of  the  inner  nature  of  spiritual  reality.  This  disclosure" 
is  furnished  by  history  and  history  alone.  It  follows  that  it  is  the 
historian  and  not  the  philosopher  who  must  discover  the  diamond 
net;  or  the  philosopher  must  become  an  historian  if  he  would  do  so. 

But  not  only  is  it  necessary  to  abandon  unreservedly  the  Pro- 
crustean principle;  the  method  of  approach  must  also  be  changed. 
This  is  the  point  to  which  it  has  been  my  particular  object  to  lead  up. 
The  interpreter  of  the  movement  of  history  must  proceed  backward, 
not  forward;  he  must  start  from  the  modern  period.  For  a  thorough, 
fully  articulated  knowledge  of  the  phenomena  is  essential  —  not 
the  superficial  acquaintance  with  which  speculators  like  Hegel 
worked;  and  such  a  knowledge  is  only  attainable  for  the  modem 
period,  because  here  only  are  the  requisite  records  preserved.  Here 
only  can  one  hope  to  surprise  the  secrets  of  the  historical  process 
and  achieve  a  full  analysis  of  the  complex  movement.  The  records 
of  ancient  and  medieval  history  are  starred  with  lacunae;  we  are 
ignorant  of  whole  groups  of  phenomena,  or  have  but  a  slight  know- 
ledge of  other  groups;  and  what  we  do  know  must  often  be  seen  in 


148  MODERN   HISTORY  OF   EUROPE 

false  perspective  and  receive  undue  attention  on  account  of  the 
adjacent  obscurities.  We  can  survey  and  attempt  syntheses;  but 
syntheses  without  fully  articulated  knowledge  are  no  more  than 
vague  shots  in  the  direction  of  a  dimly  seen  object.  And  the  only 
syntheses  possible  in  such  conditions  are  insignificant  generalities, 
bloodless  abstract  conceptions,  like  the  d/xcvrjva  Kaprjva  of  Homer's 
world  of  shades.  The  interpretation  of  history  that  shall  be  more 
than  a  collection  of  plausible  labels  must  grasp  the  vital  process, 
perceive  the  breath  and  motion,  detect  the  undercurrents,  trace  the 
windings,  discern  the  foreshado wings,  see  the  ideas  traveling  under- 
ground, discover  how  the  spiritual  forces  are  poised  and  aimed, 
determine  how  the  motives  conspire  and  interact.  And  it  is  only  for 
the  history  of  the  last  three  or  four  hundred  years  that  we  possess 
material  for  investigating  this  complicated  process. 

And  it  is  for  the  development  of  the  nineteenth  century  that  our 
position  in  some  respects  is  most  favorable.  It  is  commonly  said  that 
recent  history  cannot  be  profitably  studied,  on  the  ground  that  we 
are  too  near  to  the  events  to  be  able  to  treat  them  objectively  and  see 
them  in  the  right  perspective.  Admitting  the  truth  of  the  objection, 
recognizing  fully  that  recent  events  are  seen  by  us  "foreshortened 
in  the  tract  of  time,"  we  must  nevertheless  remember  that  there  is 
a  compensation  in  proximity  which  it  is  disastrous  to  ignore.  For 
those  who  are  near  have  opportunities  of  tracing  the  hidden  moral 
and  intellectual  work  of  an  age  which  subsequent  generations  cannot 
reach,  because  they  are  not  in  direct  relation.  De  Tocqueville  said: 
"What  contemporaries  know  better  than  posterity  is  the  mental 
movement,  the  general  passions  and  feelings  of  the  time,  whereof 
they  still-  feel  the  last  shuddering  motions  (les  derniers  fremissements) 
in  their  minds  or  in  their  hearts."  If  this  is  so,  it  is  one  of  the  most 
pressing  duties  to  posterity  that  men  in  each  generation  should 
devote  themselves  to  the  scientific  study  of  recent  history  from 
this  point  of  view. 

We  may  go  further,  and  declare  that,  in  this  light,  modem  history 
as  a  whole  possesses  a  claim  on  us  now,  which  does  not  belong  either 
to  antiquity  or  to  the  Middle  Ages.  We  have  ourselves  passed  so 
completely  beyond  the  spiritual  boundaries  of  the  ancient  and 
medieval  worlds  that  we  can  hardly  suppose  that  we  possess  any 
greater  capacity  for  a  sympathetic  apprehension  of  them  than  our 
descendants  will  possess  a  thousand  years  hence.  Whereas,  on  the 
other  hand,  we  may  fairly  assume  that  we  are  in  a  much  better 
position  than  such  remote  posterity  for  sympathetic  appreciation  of 
the  movements  —  the  emancipatory  movements  —  of  the  sixteenth, 
seventeenth,  and  eighteenth  centuries.  It  therefore  devolves  upon 
us  before  we  have  drifted  too  far  away  to  do  what  may  be  done  to 
transmit  to  future  generations  the  means  of  appreciating  and  com- 


THE   PLACE  OF  MODERN  HISTORY  149 

prehending.   In  this  sense  the  study  of  what  we  call  modern  history 
is  the  most  pressing  of  all. 

But  I  have  permitted  myself  to  digress  from  the  argument.  I  was 
concerned  to  show  that  our  only  chance  of  tracing  the  movement 
and  grasping  the  principles  of  universal  history  is  to  start  with  the 
study  of  the  modern  age  where  our  material  is  relatively  full,  and 
proceed  regressively.  One  great  mistake  of  those  who  have  attempted 
philosophies  of  history  has  been  that  they  began  at  the  other  end, — 
not  at  the  beginning,  but  at  whatever  point  their  knowledge  happened 
to  reach  back  to,  perhaps  in  China,  perhaps  in  the  Garden  of  Eden,  — 
and  were  consequently  obliged  to  adopt  a  difficult  and  precarious 
synthetic  method.  Precarious,  because  in  passing  on  from  one  stage 
to  another  there  is  no  guarantee,  owing  to  our  fragmentary  material, 
that  we  have  knowledge  of  all  that  is  significant,  and  therefore  the 
synthesis  which  expresses  the  transition  to  a  higher  stage  may  be 
vitiated  by  incompleteness.  We  may  be  acquainted  only  with  some 
of  the  forces  which  determine  the  sequel,  and,  if  we  proceed  as 
though  we  had  all  those  forces  in  our  hands,  our  conception  of 
the  sequel  will  be  inadequate. 

On  the  analytic  method,  on  the  contrary,  we  start  from  a  definite 
terminus,  namely  the  present,  — contingent  indeed,  but  not  arbitrary, 
since  it  is  the  only  possible  limit  for  the  given  investigator,  —  and  in 
the  first  stage  we  have  all  the  material,  so  that  it  is  the  fault  of  the 
investigation  and  not  the  result  of  accident  if  the  analysis  is  not 
exhaustive.  The  problem  then  is,  having  grasped  the  movement  of 
the  ideas  and  spiritual  forces  which  have  revealed  themselves  in  the 
modern  period,  to  trace,  regressively,  the  processes  out  of  which  they 
evolved,  with  the  help  of  our  records.  This,  at  least,  is  the  ideal  to 
which  the  interpreter  would  try  to  approximate.  That,  with  frag- 
mentary records,  the  whole  historical  movement  can  ever  be  traced 
by  methods  of  inference,  I  do  not  indeed  believe;  but  assuredly 
it  is  only  in  the  period  where  the  records  exist  that  we  can  first  detect 
the  secret  of  the  process  or  begin  to  discern  the  figure  on  the  carpet. 

But  the  question  will  be  asked:  Can  we  define  absolutely  the 
position  of  the  modern  period  in  the  secular  perspective  of  history? 
The  field  of  what  we  call  "modern  history"  has  a  roughly  marked 
natural  boundary  at  the  point  where  it  starts,  towards  the  end  of  the 
fifteenth  century.  We  may  say  this  without  any  prejudice  to  the 
doctrine  of  continuity.  But  the  phrase  is  used  to  cover  all  post- 
medieval  history,  and  therefore  the  hither  limit  is  always  shifting. 
For  while  it  is  usual  to  mark  off  the  last  thirty  or  forty  years  as 
"  contemporary  history,"  as  years  pass  on  the  beginning  of  "  con- 
temporary history  "  moves  forward,  and  the  end  of  the  modern  as 
distinguished  from  the  contemporary  period  moves  forward  too.  The 


150  MODERN   HISTORY   OF   EUROPE 

question  arises  whether  this  conventional  nomenclature  is  any- 
longer  appropriate,  whether  all  post-medieval  history  can  be  scienti- 
fically classified  as  a  period,  with  the  same  right  and  meaning  as  the 
Middle  Ages.  "  Ancient  History  "  is  of  course  a  merely  conventional 
and  convenient,  unscientific  term;  is  this  true  of  "Modem  History" 
also?  It  may  be  thought  that  the  answer  is  affirmative.  It  may 
seem  probable  that  the  changes  which  began  at  the  end  of  the 
eighteenth  century,  the  great  movements  of  thought  which  have 
thrilled  the  nineteenth  century,  the  implications  of  the  far-reaching 
vistas  of  knowledge  which  have  been  opened,  mark  as  new  and 
striking  a  departure  as  any  to  which  our  records  go  back,  and  con- 
stitute a  Neu-zeit  in  the  fullest  sense  of  the  word;  that  in  the  nine- 
teenth as  in  the  sixteenth  century  man  entered  into  a  new  domain  of 
ideas;  that  of  the  nineteenth  as  much  as  of  the  sixteenth  are  we 
justified  in  saying 

Ab  integro  saeclorum  nascitur  ordo. 

If  SO,  our  nomenclature  should  be  altered.  The  three  centuries  after 
Columbus  should  be  called  by  some  other  name,  such  as  post-medieval, 
and  "  modem  "should  be  appropriated  to  the  period  ushered  in  by  the 
French  Revolution  and  the  formation  of  the  American  Common- 
wealth, until  in  turn  a  new  period  shall  claim  a  name  which  can 
never  be  permanently  attached.  It  would  follow  that  in  the  His- 
torical Department  at  this  Congress,  there  should  be  another  section; 
the  nineteenth  century,  the  more  modem  modern  period,  should  have 
a  section  to  itself.  In  Germany,  a  distinction  of  this  kind  has  been 
adopted.  The  sixteenth,  seventeenth,  and  eighteenth  centuries  are 
described  as  die  neuere  Zeit;  while  the  nineteenth  is  distinguished  as 
die  neueste  Zeit. 

Among  the  notes  which  form  the  stamp  and  signature  of  this 
neueste  Zeit  is  the  new  historical  interest,  if  I  may  say  so,  which  has 
become  prevalent  in  the  world  and  is  itself  an  historical  fact  of  su- 
preme importance.  It  is  expressed  not  only  in  the  enormous  amount 
of  research  that  has  been  done,  but  in  the  axiom  of  "history  for  its 
own  sake,"  and  also  in  the  attempts  to  create  a  philosophy  of  history. 
It  is  a  new  force  set  free,  which  will  have  its  own  place  in  the  complex 
of  the  driving  forces  of  the  world.  It  is  to  be  taken  along  with  the 
equally  recent  development  of  a  consciousness  of  our  relations  to 
future  generations,  which  is  practically  reflected  in  a  growing  sense  of 
duty  to  posterity.  Both  facts  taken  together,  the  interest  in  human 
experience  and  the  interest  in  human  destiny,  represent  a  new  sense 
of  the  solidarity  of  humanity,  linking  past  ages  and  ages  to  come. 
In  other  words,  the  human  mind  has  begun  to  rise  above  the  immedi- 
ate horizon  of  the  circumstances  and  interests  of  the  present  genera- 
tion, and  to  realize  seriously,  not  as  a  mere  object  of  learned  curi- 
osity, the  significance  of  the  past  and  the  potentialities  of  the  future. 


THE  PLACE  OF  MODERN  HISTORY  151 

The  most  familiar  of  words,  'past  and  future,  have  become  pregnant 
with  significance;  they  are  charged  with  all  the  implications  of  a 
new  perspective. 

It  is  clear  that  this  new  sense  is  inconsistent  with  the  affirmation 
of  Arnold  and  Seeley  that  contemporary  is  superior  to  preceding 
history  by  all  the  superiority  of  an  end  to  the  means.  This  doctrine 
expresses  the  attitude  of  the  old  unregenerate  spirit.  The  theoretical 
truth  which  it  contains  is  simply  this,  that  contemporary  history 
represents  a  more  advanced  stage  than  any  preceding  it,  or,  in  other 
words,  there  is  a  real  evolution.  But  for  the  same  reason  it  is  itself 
inferior  to  the  development  which  will  succeed  it;  and  if  past  history 
is  to  be  described  as  a  means,  contemporary  history  must  be  equally 
described  as  a  means,  on  the  same  ground.  Theoretically,  therefore, 
this  teleological  argument  has  no  application;  it  would  not  become 
relevant  till  the  end  of  the  process  has  been  reached.  But  what 
Arnold  and  Seeley  probably  had  most  in  mind  was  the  importance 
of  comprehending  the  past  for  the  sake  of  comprehending  the  present 
for  practical  purposes.  (This  is  now  so  fully  understood  and  recognized 
that  I  have  not  thought  it  necessary  to  dwell  on  it  to-day.  It  is  now 
generally  acknowledged,  by  those  whose  opinion  need  be  considered, 
that  the  practical  value  of  history  consists  not,  as  used  to  bethought, 
in  lessons  and  examples,  but  in  the  fact  that  it  explains  the  present, 
and  that  without  it  the  present,  in  which  we  have  to  act,  would  be 
incomprehensible.  It  is  modem  history,  of  course,  that  is  here 
chiefly  concerned.  Lord  Acton  said :  "  Modem  history  touches  us  so 
nearly,  it  is  so  deep  a  question  of  life  and  death,  that  we  are  bound 
to  find  our  own  way  through  it,  and  to  owe  our  insight  to  ourselves." 
I  venture  to  think  that  Lord  Acton,  in  this  characteristic  statement, 
rather  strains  the  note;  but  the  statement  concerns,  you  observe,  the 
practical  not  the  theoretical  value  of  the  subject.) 

To  attempt  to  define  absolutely  the  significance  of  modern  or 
recent  history  in  the  order  of  development  would  be  to  fall  into  an 
error  like  that  for  which  I  criticised  Hegel  and  Krause  and  others 
who  thought  to  draw  forth  Leviathan  with  a  hook.  It  is  much  if  it 
can  be  established,  as  I  think  it  can,  that  with  the  nineteenth  century 
the  curtain  has  risen  on  a  new  act  in  the  drama.  But  we  can  be  more 
confident  in  asserting  negatives.  The  ideas  and  forces  which  have 
driven  man  through  the  last  four  hundred  years  and  are  driving  him 
now,  are  not  the  last  words  or  dooms  in  the  progress  of  reason.  The 
idea  of  freedom  which  the  modem  world  has  struggled  to  realize 
has  been  deemed  by  many  the  ultima  linea  rerum;  but  it  is  difficult 
to  see  how  or  why  it  should  be  final,  in  the  sense  of  not  being  super- 
seded by  the  appearance  of  higher  ideas  which  its  realization  shall 
have  enabled  to  emerge.  Or  again,  it  is  unreasonable  to  suppose  that 
the  idea  of  nationality  which  has  recently  played  and  still  plays  a 


152  MODERN   HISTORY  OF   EUROPE 

great  r61e,  is  an  end  in  itself  or  more  than  a  phase  in  evokition.  We 
must  acquiesce  in  our  incompetence  to  form  any  scientific  judgment 
as  to  the  value  or  position  of  this  stage  in  the  total  development. 

To  state  briefly  the  main  thesis  of  this  paper.  The  answer  to  the 
question,  "  What  is  the  position  of  modem  history  in  the  domain  of 
universal  knowledge?"  depends  in  the  first  instance  on  our  view  of 
the  fundamental  philosophical  question  at  issue  between  idealism 
and  naturalism.  If  we  are  believers  in  naturalism,  then  all  history, 
including  modem  history,  has  its  sole  theoretical  value  in  the  function 
of  providing  material  for  the  investigation  of  sociological  laws.  It 
must  accept  a  position  such  as  Comte  assigns  to  it.  But  if  we  are 
idealists,  if  we  hold  that  thought  is  a  presupposition  of  physical 
existence  and  not  a  Ruction  of  matter,  then  history  as  a  disclosure  of 
the  evolution  of  thought  has  an  independent  realm  of  its  own  and 
demands  a  distinct  interpretation,  to  prepare  for  which  is  the  aim  of 
historical  research.  The  segment  of  history  which  we  call  modem, 
from  the  sixteenth  century  onward,  occupies  a  peculiar  place,  be- 
cause here,  partly  in  consequence  of  the  invention  of  printing,  our 
materials  begin  to  be  adequate  for  a  complete  analysis.  This  gives 
us  the  theoretical  significance  of  the  modem  period  as  an  object  of 
study;  it  is  the  field  in  which  we  may  hope  to  charm  from  human 
history  the  secret  of  its  rational  movement,  detect  its  logic,  and  win 
a  glimpse  of  a  fragment  of  the  pattern  on  a  carpet,  of  which  probably 
much  the  greater  part  is  still  unwoven. 

This  Congress  is  suggestive  in  many  ways,  suggestive  especially  of 
the  distance  the  world  has  traveled  since  1804  or  since  1854.  There 
will  be  many  more  of  its  kind;  but  this  is  unique  as  the  first.  It  is 
not  very  bold  to  predict  that  historians  of  the  distant  future,  in  tracing 
the  growth  of  cooperation  and  tendencies  to  a  federation  of  human 
effort,  which  are  one  of  the  transformative  influences  now  affecting 
mankind,  will  record  this  Congress  in  which  we  are  here  met  together 
as  a  significant  point  in  this  particular  stage  of  man's  progress 
toward  his  unknown  destiny. 


HISTORICAL  SYNTHESIS 


BY    CHARLES   W.    COLBY 


f 


[Charles  W.  Colby,  Kingsford  Professor  of  History,  McGill  University,  Montreal. 
b.  Stanstead,  Quebec,  1867.  A.B.  McGill  Uniyersity,  1887;  A.M.  Harvard 
University,  1889;  Ph.D.  ibid.  1890;  D.C.L.  (Hon.)  Bishops  College,  1904. 
Author  of  Selections  from  the  Sources  of  English  History;  also  various  articles 
for  The  Nation,  and  for  American  Historical  Review  and  English  Historical 
Review.] 

When  Huxley  declared  that  Spencer's  idea  of  a  tragedy  was  a 
deduction  killed  by  a  fact,  he  minted  a  phrase  which  is  not  without 
its  application  to  history.  The  human  mind,  prone  to  spin  theories 
and  to  generalize  from  the  exceptional  case,  stands  ever  in  need  of 
such  a  corrective  as  is  supplied  by  the  record  of  ancestral  experience. 
Thus  it  becomes  the  duty  of  the  historian  to  go  through  life  with 
sling  in  hand  and  heart  steeled  to  slay  the  false  deduction  which  is 
tyrannizing  over  mankind.  Nothing  equals  the  vitality  of  a  lie  save 
the  longevity  of  a  legend,  and  as  the  deadly  facts  are  sometimes  slow 
to  disclose  themselves  a  voluble  deduction  may  for  years  or  genera- 
tions mislead  even  the  thoughtful.  The  Hildebrandine  scheme  of 
political  philosophy  which  underlies  the  Dictatus  Papae,  the  excom- 
munications of  Henry  IV  and  the  letter  to  William  the  Conqueror, 
had  its  day  and  may  still  claim  the  support  of  a  party;  but  for 
most  of  us  it  must  stand  ultimately  condemned  by  the  weakness  of 
its  historical  basis.  How  often  during  the  past  century  has  the 
groundwork  of  famous  theories,  whether  political,  social,  theological, 
or  ethical,  been  modified,  if  not  destroyed,  by  the  solvent  of  historical 
fact.  On  the  24th  of  April,  1793,  Robespierre,  drawing  his  inspiration 
from  a  well-known  source,  exclaimed:  "Kings,  aristocrats,  tyrants, 
whosoever  they  may  be,  are  slaves  revolted  against  the  sovereign 
of  the  earth,  which  is  the  human  race,  and  against  the  law-maker 
of  the  universe,  which  is  nature."^  If  this  sentiment  strikes  an 
answering  chord  anywhere  at  the  present  day,  it  can  hardly  be  in  the 
heart  of  an  historian.  Nor  are  the  deductions  against  which  historical 
fact  makes  war  confined  to  large  ideas  like  Gregory  VII 's  theory  of 
Church  and  State,  or  the  Jacobin  doctrine  of  social  origins.  Take, 
for  example,  the  actual  state  of  the  Napoleonic  legend  which  was 
developed  by  the  French  radicals  of  1820,  and  embellished  for 
current  purposes  under  the  July  Monarchy.  Lord  Acton  went  so  far 
as  to  style  Napoleon  "the  most  splendid  genius  that  has  appeared 
on  earth,"  ^  but  the  Napoleon  of  the  French  radicals  in  1820  was 
a  liberal  who  above  all  other  things  loved  peace. 

*  Orators  of  the  French  Revolution,  ed.  H.  Morse  Stephens,  vol.  ii,  p.  374. 
^  English  Historical  Review,  vol.  ii,  p.  603. 


154  MODERN   HISTORY  OF   EUROPE 

Under  the  circumstances  we  need  feel  little  surprise  when  .we 
contemplate  the  amount  of  energy  which  modern  historians  have 
devoted  to  the  task  of  setting  their  predecessors  right.  One  might 
almost  say  that  at  the  dawn  of  the  nineteenth  century  the  criminal 
law  of  England  required  no  more  revision  than  did  the  best  books 
which  were  to  be  had  on  English  history.  Perhaps  more  mistakes 
clustered  around  the  Civil  War  and  the  Revolution  than  around  any 
other  subjects,  although,  as  Dr.  Johnson  observes  of  Voltaire  and 
Rousseau,  it  is  difficult  to  settle  the  proportion  of  iniquity  between 
Smollett's  account  of  the  Revolution  and  Hume's  allusions  to  the 
medieval  church.  Apart  from  all  larger  attempts  at  construction, 
the  critics  have  had  quite  enough  to  do  during  the  last  hundred 
years  or  so  in  correcting  errors  of  detail.  This  kind  of  occupation 
is  not,  and  never  will  be,  finished.  It  is  an  industry  which  goes  on 
for  the  most  part  quietly,  though  interrupted  now  and  then  by  an 
explosion.  Investigators  of  the  higher  grade  still  aspire  to  set  right 
mistaken  notions  regarding  the  defenses  at  Hastings.  The  humble 
beginner  is  content  if  he  can  detect  a  slip  lurking  beneath  the  guarded 
utterances  of  Stubbs. 

We  all  like  to  prove  our  points,  and  the  more  limited  their  scope 
the  keener  seems  the  anxiety.  Yet  at  times,  and  especially  on  inter- 
national occasions  like  the  present,  one's  thought  is  drawn  away 
from  the  task  of  rectifying  details,  and  even  from  the  nobler  sport 
of  slaying  unfounded  deductions.  According  to  a  dictum  of  Professor 
Dicey,  "Democracy  depends  upon  the  importance  attached  to  the 
similarities,  as  surely  as  aristocracy  depends  upon  the  importance 
attached  to  the  differences,  of  human  nature."^  Usually  we  are 
intellectual  aristocrats,  thinking  of  the  specialties  which  divide  us 
and  spurring  on  the  hobbies  which  bear  us  madly  away  in  the  most 
divergent  directions.  Here  we  become  democrats  (not  necessarily 
red  radicals  but  respectable  whiggish  democrats)  bent  on  accent- 
uating if  only  for  a  moment  the  things  that  draw  us- together.  Well 
would  it  be  for  one  speaking  on  such  a  subject  as  mine  if  he  could 
produce  from  his  pocket  an  eloquent  and  convincing  philosophy  of 
history.  When  we  pause  a  moment  to  draw  breath,  we  can  overhear 
the  candid  comments  of  those  who  rate  the  value  of  historical  studies 
less  highly  than  we  do.  I  am  not  referring  so  much  to  the  cynical 
detractor  like  Walpole,  with  his  gibe  against  historical  credibility. 
I  have  in  mind,  rather,  the  candid  friend  of  philosophical  tastes,  who 
is  willing  to  admit  that  history  would  furnish  a  fine  theme  if  only  his- 
torians could  manage  to  get  at  the  heart  of  their  subject  instead  of 
playing  with  superficial  trivialities.  Buckle,  to  whose  taste  for  specu- 
lation was  added  a  vast  amount  of  historical  knowledge,  has  expressed 
this  view  in  a  passage  too  hackneyed  for  further  quotation ;  and  it  is 
*  The  NaHon,  vol.  lxxv,  p.  28. 


HISTORICAL  SYNTHESIS  155 

the  inveterate  empiricism  of  historical  writers  that  makes  Emerson 
cry  out,  "  I  am  ashamed  to  see  what  a  shallow  village  tale  our  so- 
called  history  is." 

The  comments  of  an  honest  spectator  are  usually  worth  something, 
but  despite  the  present  force  of  the  reaction  it  seems  agreed  by 
experts  that  subjective  ideas  should  be  kept  in  strict  quarantine 
and  not  permitted  to  infect  the  pure,  annalistic  record.  At  a  recent 
meeting  of  the  American  Historical  Association  which  was  held  in 
Philadelphia,  Dr.  James  Sullivan  read  an  excellent  paper  entitled,. 
"The  Antecedents  of  the  Declaration  of  Independence."  Much  that 
he  then  said  I  still  remember,  but  what  impressed  me  most  was  the 
following  reference  to  the  fundamental  propositions  of  the  Declara- 
tion. "  In  the  public  mind  of  to-day,"  said  Dr.  Sullivan,  "  inalienable 
rights  are  those  things  which  we  reserve  for  ourselves  and  deny  to 
our  neighbors."  And  he  proceeded  to  take  this  as  a  crucial  instance, 
illustrating  the  wide  gulf  which  separates  the  scholarly  world  from 
the  general  public.  "As  a  matter  of  fact,"  he  continued,  "the  world 
of  learning  long  ago  abandoned  the  state-of-nature  theory,  with 
all  its  corollaries  of  equality,  inalienable  rights,  and  others,  but  the 
world  at  large  still  seems  to  be,  in  respect  to  such  doctrines,  back  in 
the  eighteenth  century."  ^  These  words  were  received  by  the  audience 
with  evident  appreciation,  and  one  could  not  but  feel  a  slight  shock 
of  surprise  at  observing  the  mirth  of  American  citizens  (in  Philadel- 
phia of  all  places)  when  gentle  persiflage  was  thus  directed  against 
the  preamble  of  the  Declaration.  If  "inalienable  rights"  seemed 
amusing  to  a  congress  of  American  historians  meeting  in  Philadelphia, 
I  am  sure  that  an  international  congress  of  historians  meeting  at  St. 
Louis  would  be  equally  amused  to  hear  any  one  suggest  that  there 
exists  a  basis  upon  which  a  philosophy  of  history  can  be  founded. 
Lowell  once  complained  of  the  trouble  he  found  in  trying 

"  to  raise  anerithmon  gelasma 
With  rhymes  so  hard-hunted  they  pant  with  the  asthma. ' ' 

No  such  difficulty  need  be  encountered  in  starting  the  merriment 
of  historians.  Mention,  with  apparent  seriousness,  "the  philosophy 
of  history  "  and  the  thing  is  done.  Herder,  Fichte,  Schelling,  Schlegel, 
Krause,  and  Hegel  have  disappeared  completely  from  our  ken  since 
the  days  of  Ranke.  "Mais  ou  sont  les  neiges  d'antan?"  If  any 
individual  member  of  our  craft  really  believes  that  the  philosophy 
of  history  is  anything  more  than  flatus  vocis,  he  had  better  keep  the 
opinion  to  himself.  Otherwise  he  may  encounter  the  fate  which 
overtook  Nominalists  in  the  age  of  Roscellinus.  But  why  discuss  the 
subject  further?  Did  not  one  of  the  best  known  and  most  eminent 
historians  of  this  hemisphere  recently  crush  a  whole  host  of  adversa- 
ries when  he  said  that  sociology  was  simply  our  old  foe  the  philosophy 
'  Report  of  the  American  Historical  Association  for  1902,  vol.  i,  pp.  66-67. 


156  MODERN   HISTORY  OF   EUROPE 

of  history  in  disguise?  Since  international  gatherings  are  designed 
to  promote  peace  and  herald  the  golden  year,  one  must  refrain,  in 
speaking  of  historical  synthesis,  from  all  attempt  to  present  an  alleged 
basis  for  a  philosophy  of  history.  What  may  be  going  on  at  this  mo- 
ment in  the  metaphysical  section  we  cannot  tell,  but  here  the  nearest 
approach  to  philosophy  which  one  dare  make  is  to  suggest  that  the 
problem  of  synthesis  is  even  more  pressing  than  are  the  difficulties 
which  crowd  in  from  the  side  of  criticism.  Should  one  be  asked  how 
•this  subject  is  connected  with  the  political  history  of  modem  Europe, 
an  answer  might  be  found  in  the  words  a  fortiori.  What  has  to  be  said 
regarding  historical  synthesis  is  of  general  application,  bearing  upon 
the  Greeks  and  Romans  as  well  as  upon  the  French  Revolution 
and  the  establishment  of  the  German  Empire.  For  the  last  four 
centuries,  however,  the  question  grows  increasingly  complex  and 
important.  The  multiplication  of  data,  nearness  to  the  event, 
patriotic  prejudice,  and  other  obvious  causes  combine  to  render  this 
problem  most  crucial  of  all  in  its  relation  to  modern  history. 

Indicating  a  contrast  between  synthesis  and  criticism,  I  expressed 
the  opinion,  a  moment  ago,  that  the  demands  made  upon  us  by  the 
latter  were  on  the  whole  the  more  urgent  and  exacting.  In  historical 
research  and  composition  so  many  elements  are  concerned  that  one's 
attitude  toward  them  must,  perforce,  be  tinged  by  opportunism. 
How  indispensable  critical  processes  are,  we  all  understand,  and  from 
the  very  fullness  of  this  recognition  the  danger  would  seem  to  lie 
in  another  direction.  It  was  not  always  so.  We  have  but  to  read  the 
controversy  which  arose  over  Middleton's  Letter  to  Dr.  Waterland, 
followed  by  the  controversy  over  the  same  author's  Free  Inquiry,  if  we 
would  carry  ourselves  back  to  days  when  the  claims  of  criticism  were 
paramount.  When  we  have  examined  Bishop  Zachary  Pearce's 
answer  to  the  Letter,  and  especially  the  passage  on  Josephus  in  his 
Reply  to  the  Defence,  we  are  quite  prepared  for  a  passage  like  this  in 
John  Jackson's  rejoinder  to  the  Free  Inquiry  :  "  In  what  I  have 
examined  I  have  found  nothing  of  real  argument  or  solid  literature; 
but  a  great  deal  of  very  bad  reasoning;  and  what  is  worse,  gross 
misrepresentations  of  facts;  and  a  very  uncandid  and  unmanly 
treatment  of  learned,  honest,  and  pious  men,  whom  without  a  shadow 
of  evidence  he  has  treated  as  enthusiasts,  cheats,  and  forgers;  but 
whom  their  greatest  and  most  inveterable  enemies.  Pagans,  Jews, 
and  most  infamous  heretics  could  never  convict  of  the  least  fraud, 
deceit,  or  bad  practice."  ^  Middleton  died  in  1750,  but  as  late  as 
1829  the  Quarterly  Review  was  denouncing  the  "absurd  and  shallow 
doctrines  of  Niebuhr"  and  attacking  the  translation  of  Thirlwall  and 
Hare  in  language  which  deserved  the  answer  that  Thirlwall  gave  it. 
"By  the  bye,"  says  the  reviewer,  "we  think  his  last  translators,  two 
*  Remarks  on  Dr.  Middleton's  Free  Inquiry,  London,  1749,  p.  58. 


HISTORICAL  SYNTHESIS  157 

clergymen  of  the  Church  of  England,  since  they  have  exercised  the 
right  of  adding  notes  to  Niebuhr's  text  whenever  they  thought  they 
had  anything  worth  hearing  to  offer,  might  as  well  have  remarked, 
for  the  benefit  of  their  young  academical  readers,  on  some  of  the 
most  offensive  paragraphs  which  have  appeared  since  the  days  of  the 
Philosophical  Dictionary.  But  Niebuhr  is,  what  Mr.  Wordsworth 
should  not  have  called  Voltaire,  'a  pert,  dull  scoffer.'  "  ^ 

Refreshing  our  memories  by  an  appeal  to  these  and  kindred 
passages,  we  can  sympathize  with  the  pioneers  who  strove  for 
enlightenment  in  a  time  when  criticism  was  equivalent  to  heresy. 
That  date,  however,  is  long  past,  and  at  present  it  may  not  be  unwise 
to  consider  whether  the  full  triumph  of  critical  and  comparative 
methods  does  not  in  its  turn  disclose  fresh  questions  to  be  faced  — 
or  rather  old  questions  to  be  faced  in  the  light  of  new  conditions. 
The  controlling  purpose,  one  may  contend,  under  which  data  should 
be  chosen,  combined,  and  presented,  is  no  less  a  factor  now  than  it 
was  in  those  long  ages  before  the  net  of  criticism  had  swept  in  every- 
thing from  Ranafer  and  Khafra  to  the  Legend  of  Marcus  Whitman 
and  the  Literary  Industries  of  H.  H.  Bancroft.  More  than  two 
generations  have  elapsed  since  Ranke  began  his  career  with  the 
History  of  the  Romance  and  German  Races  ;  the  Ecole  des  Chartes 
has  been  publishing  its  journal  ever  since  1839;  it  was  in  1863  that 
Droysen  opened  the  ninth  volume  of  the  Historische  Zeitschrift  with 
his  paper  on  the  "Elevation  of  History  to  the  Rank  of  a  Science"; 
and  for  those  who  cannot  spend  their  youth  in  a  seminary,  the 
manual  of  Bemheim  or  that  of  Langlois  and  Seignobos  will  furnish 
instruction  regarding  the  rules  of  the  game  as  it  is  currently  played. 
The  fruits  of  critical  research  are  untold,  or  at  least  one  could  not 
attempt  to  tell  them  without  lapsing  into  rhetoric.  Yet  criticism  is 
not  everything  here  below,  and  utilitarian  instinct  at  its  strongest 
urges  the  historian  to  do  something  with  his  facts  after  he  has  got 
them. 

In  taking  an  abstract  term  like  synthesis  for  the  central  point  of 
one's  discourse,  there  is  every  opportunity  to  wander  round  in  a  fog 
of  words,  losing  one's  self  and  being  lost  sight  of  by  one's  hearers. 
From  a  desire  to  keep  closely  in  touch  with  the  concrete,  I  shall  avoid 
the  use  of  metaphysical  language  and  limit  myself  to  a  few  remarks 
upon  the  noeud  vital  of  historical  composition,  namely,  the  person- 
ality of  the  writer.  And  here  what  I  mean  to  convey  can  best  be 
expressed  through  that  familiar  story  of  the  artist's  reply  to  a  vacant 
questioner.  "  Could  you  tell  me,  Mr.  Opie,  how  you  mix  your  colors?  " 
"  With  brains.  Sir,"  is  the  universal  formula  of  retort  to  such  queries, 
whenever  and  wherever  they  may  be  asked.  Sir  James  Mackintosh 
said  of  Opie,  that  "had  he  turned  his  mind  to  the  study  of  philosophy 
*  Quarterly  Review,  vol.  xxxix,  pp.  8-9  (footnote). 


158  MODERN   HISTORY  OF   EUROPE 

he  would  have  been  one  of  the  first  philosophers  of  the  age,"  and 
the  above  rejoinder  lends  color  to  the  statement.  When  under  the 
auspices  of  the  Greeks  history  entered  upon  the  European  phase  of 
its  existence  it  had  the  character  of  a  fine  art,  and  perhaps  some 
profit  can  still  be  gained  by  recalling  this  fact.  One  kind  of  talent  is 
required  to  elicit  the  data;  another  kind  of  talent  is  required  when  the 
story  comes  to  be  told,  whether  as  plain  narrative  or  with  interpre- 
tative comment.  Fortunate  is  the  man  who  is  gifted  in  both  direc- 
tions, and  though  rare,  he  might  be  less  rare  if  historians  accorded 
more  attention  to  the  synthetic  part  of  their  task.  As  Burke  says 
at  the  close  of  the  Reflections  :  "  When  the  equipoise  of  the  vessel  in 
which  we  sail  may  be  endangered  by  overloading  it  upon  one  side, 
we  become  desirous  of  carrying  the  small  weight  of  our  reasons  to  that 
which  may  preserve  its  equipoise."  In  our  day  the  idea  of  scientific 
truth  has  received  quite  its  fair  share  of  emphasis,  and  we  are  not 
likely  to  bring  back  those  pseudo-Thucydidean  flourishes  of  the 
eighteenth  century  which  provoke  the  sarcasms  of  Mr.  Wylie.  By 
way  of  adjusting  the  equipoise,  let  us  direct  our  notice  to  the  his- 
torian as  a  writer  whose  personality  need  not  be  effaced  and  whose 
role  has  only  been  rendered  the  greater  by  the  improved  quality  of 
the  materials  which  are  now  within  his  grasp. 

However  created,  the  impression  seems  prevalent  in  high  quarters 
that  a  writer  of  historical  works  must  be  deemed  suspect  if  he  permits 
his  text  to  become  associated  with  the  distinctive  quality  of  his  own 
mind.  By  way  of  gloss  upon  this  notion,  two  passages  of  very  differ- 
ent origin  may  be  brought  together.  One  day  when  Fustel  de  Cou- 
langes  was  lecturing,  his  students  broke  in  with  applause.  "  Do  not 
applaud  me,"  he  said;  "it  is  not  I  who  address  you;  it  is  history 
which  speaks  through  me."  ^  This  anecdote,  taken  from  an  obituary 
notice  of  Fustel  by  Gabriel  Monod,  illustrates  the  danger  to  which 
the  modem  historian  is  exposed  when  he  emphasizes  overmuch  the 
scientific  character  of  his  subject.  From  what  we  know  of  Fustel 's 
disposition  we  must  believe  him  to  have  uttered  these  words  in  the 
most  sober  earnest.  They  were  not  a  mere  rhetorical  flourish  but  an 
outburst  from  the  soul,  showing  that  with  all  his  personal  modesty 
he  had  come  to  consider  his  own  doctrines  a  portion  of  absolute 
truth.  Fustel  is  not,  perhaps,  a  perfect  type  of  the  scientific  his- 
torian, yet  he  looked  upon  himself  as  being  a  complete  and  faith- 
ful devotee  of  science,  "He  had,"  says  M.  Monod,  "a  very  lofty 
idea  of  history  and  the  duties  of  an  historian.  He  believed  that 
history  is  a  positive  science,  and  that  it  is  able  to  lead  those  who 
study  the  text  honestly  and  critically  to  a  certitude  of  the  most 
scientific  kind.  He  considered  that  those  who  have  the  honor  of 
working  at  this  science  should  give  themselves  up  to  it  with  absolute 
*  Revue  Historique,  vol.  xli,  p.  278. 


■  HISTORICAL  SYNTHESIS  159 

devotion  and  disinterestedness,  not  permitting  political  views  or 
the  promptings  of  art  to  enter  their  thoughts  and  works."  ^  Here  is 
a  case  where  a  man  of  literary  talent  and  imaginative  temperament 
tries  to  make  himself  a  pure  scientist  by  dint  of  erudition  and  hon- 
esty. Fustel  could  not  allow  that  the  German  invasion  of  the  fifth 
century  had  caused  any  organic  changes  in  the  life  of  Gaul.  Writing 
in  the  Revue  des  Deux  Mondes,  under  the  date  1872,  he  observes  a 
studied  calmness  of  phrase,  but  beneath  it  we  can  see  his  scorn  for 
contemporary  historians  in  Germany,  who  were  equally  scientific 
in  their  pretensions  with  himself  and  equally  tenacious  of  their 
views.  I  am  not  trying  to  blame  Fustel  in  the  least  or  to  conceal  my 
genuine  admiration  of  his  great  talents.  He  was  not,  however,  what 
he  deemed  himself  to  be,  the  impassive  mouthpiece '  of  history, 
and  his  work  might  have  been  even  better  than  it  is  had  he  taken 
his  functions  less  seriously. 

Beside  the  rebuke  of  Fustel  to  his  class  let  us  place  an  utterance 
which  was  made  only  a  few  weeks  ago  by  a  very  eminent  thinker  and 
man  of  action,  Mr.  John  Morley.  In  this  case  you  will  observe  that 
there  is  no  express  mention  of  history,  but  we  shall  not  need  to  hunt 
long  before  finding  the  application.  During  the  past  summer  the 
University  of  Edinburgh  conferred  upon  Mr.  Morley  an  honorary 
degree,  and  as  such  gifts  are  encumbered  by  the  servitude  of  a  speech, 
he  made  the  required  remarks.  Toward  the  close  of  his  address  he 
struck  the  aspiring  note,  without  which  an  utterance  from  his  lips 
would  lack  its  wonted  character.  As  his  selected  epigraph  he  urged 
the  undergraduates  before  him  to  cultivate  that  liberty  of  mind 
which  he  called  the  mark  of  distinction  between  the  educated  and 
the  half-educated  man.  "I  have,"  he  continued,  "a  great  friend 
whose  happy  fortune  it  has  been  to  know  some  of  the  most  prominent 
and  leading  men  of  his  time,  and  he  assures  me  that  of  those  great 
and  prominent  men  he  does  not  think  he  could  count  more  than 
four  who  are  or  were  really  lovers  of  truth.  Of  course  we  are  not 
complimenting  ourselves  too  much  when  we  say  that  we  are  all 
lovers  of  truth  in  a  sense;  but  by  lovers  of  truth  I  mean  something 
more  than  the  sense  in  which  we  are  all  lovers  of  truth.  I  mean  men 
who  are  free  from  the  imprisonment  of  formula,  tolerably  detached 
from  the  affairs  of  party  in  Church  and  State,  with  width  of  appre- 
hension, power  of  comprehension,  which  after  all  is  the  true  aim 
of  culture."^  Now  the  love  of  truth  as  thus  defined  is  or  should  be 
the  badge  of  the  historian.  Unfortunately  it  seems  to  be  rare,  since 
Mr.  Morley 's  friend  has  discovered  it  in  four  cases  only  among  the 
distinguished  men  of  his  generation,  and  he  does  not  expressly  state 
that  any  one  of  the  favored  few  was  an  historian. 

*  Reime  Historique,  vol.  xli,  p.  278. 
2  The  Times,  July  25,  1904. 


160  MODERN  HISTORY  OF    EUROPE 

The  general  inference  which  I  would  seek  to  draw  from  the  above 
passages  might  run  somewhat  in  this  wise.  The  truth-loving  and  other 
qualities  necessary  for  the  equipment  of  an  ideal  scientific  historian 
are  extremely  rare;  so  rare,  indeed,  that  most  of  those  who,  like 
Fustel,  consider  themselves  the  living  voices  of  historical  verity 
are  self-deceived.  While  they  keep  within  the  field  of  pure  chrono- 
logy all  may  be  well,  but  when  following  the  instinct  of  an  open 
mind  they  would  mount  to  those  higher  levels  where  abide  the  souls 
of  great  men,  the  seeds  of  great  movements,  and  the  mysteries  of 
racial  development,  they  lose  contact  with  what  is  certain  and 
enter  a  region  where  the  sole  criterion  is  probability.  If  one  feels 
this  in  dealing  with  individuals,  he  will  feel  it  still  more  in  dealing 
with  movements  or  races:  and  that  the  careful  historian  feels  it  in 
dealing  with  individuals  may  be  inferred  from  Mr.  Rose's  words  con- 
cerning Napoleon's  policy  in  1805.  "The  question,"  he  says,  "has 
often  been  asked  whether  Napoleon  seriously  intended  the  invasion 
of  England  ";  and  after  a  long  discussion  of  this  point,  he  concludes: 
"  But  indeed  Napoleon  is  often  unfathomable.  Herein  lies  much  of 
the  charm  of  Napoleonic  studies.  He  is  at  once  the  Achilles,  the 
Mercury,  and  the  Proteus  of  the  modern  world.  The  ease  with  which 
his  mind  grasped  all  problems  and  suddenly  concentrated  its  force 
on  some  new  plan  may  well  perplex  posterity  as  it  dazed  his  con- 
temporaries." ^  Should  the  best  opinion  of  scholars  ever  decide  that 
history  means  chronology  alone,  —  that  is,  the  determination  of 
particular  and  isolated  facts, — the  critical,  scientific  method  might 
well  succeed  in  dominating  this  region,  unchallenged  and  secure. 
Nor  would  it  be  a  petty  realm.  But  hitherto,  in  practice  if  not  by 
exact  definition,  history  has  embraced  the  manifold  relations  and 
interdependencies  of  these  facts,  some  apparently  simple  but  many 
conjectural  and  obscure.  Conceiving  of  history  under  this  form,  one 
is  emboldened  to  hazard  the  opinion  that  in  the  synthetic  process  the 
writer's  personality  should  not  be  obliterated,  but  that  it  should  be 
present,  frankly  revealed  where  necessary,  and  not  covered  up  from 
any  nervous  dread  of  deposing  history  from  her  scientific  throne. 
Then  a  man  like  Fustel,  scholar  and  artist  in  one,  would  refrain 
from  saying  (at  any  rate  if  his  subject  were  the  origins  of  feudalism), 
"It  is  history  which  speaks  through  me";  but  he  might  let  it  be 
known  in  some  way  that  the  text  of  his  work  was  simply  an  inter- 
pretation of  what  in  his  judgment  and  to  the  best  of  his  knowledge 
were  the  essential  facts.  After  one  has  pushed  thoroughness  to  its 
limits,  exhausted  the  material  available  to  him,  and  brought  his 
matured  thought  to  bear  upon  the  results,  he  must  leave  the  finished 
product,  whether  scientific  or  not,  upon  the  knees  of  the  gods  — 
anglice  to  the  mercy  of  his  severest  critic,  the  lapse  of  time. 
*  The  Life  of  Napoleon,  by  J.  H.  Rose,  vol.  i,  p.  466. 


HISTORICAL  SYNTHESIS  161 

Have  any  histories  yet  been  written,  apart  from  works  similar  to 
L'Art  de  Verifier  les  Dates,  which  do  not  contain  a  distinct  dehverance 
on  points  where  there  is  room  for  difference  of  opinion.  It  has  been 
said  of  Ranke  that  he  had  the  disinterestedness  of  the  dead,  and 
regarding  the  nature  of  his  standards  there  can  be  no  manner  of 
doubt.  Just  before  writing  this  passage  I  opened  the  first  volume  of 
his  History  of  England  at  random  and  came  upon  the  following  allu- 
sion to  the  Casket  Letters.  "Who  does  not  know  the  sonnets  and 
the  love-intoxicated  letters  she  is  believed  to  have  addressed  to  him? 
I  would  not  say  that  every  word  of  the  latter  is  genuine;  through 
the  several  translations  —  from  the  French  original  (which  is  lost) 
into  the  Scotch  idiom,  from  this  into  Latin,  and  then  back  into 
French  as  we  now  have  them  —  they  may  have  suffered  much 
alteration;  we  have  no  right  to  lay  stress  on  every  expression  and 
interpret  it  by  the  light  of  later  events;  but  in  the  main  they  are 
without  doubt  genuine;  they  contain  circumstances  which  no  one 
else  could  then  know  and  which  have  since  been  proved  to  be  true; 
no  human  being  could  have  invented  them."  Here  the  judicial  tone 
is  maintained,  and  we  can  see  the  historian  endeavoring  dispassion- 
ately to  state  the  truth  about  an  intricate  and  difficult  case.  Yet 
were  Ranke  writing  on  the  Casket  Letters  at  this  moment  and  in  the 
light  of  the  fullest  knowledge  which  can  be  had,  one  may  doubt 
whether  he  would  say  so  positively,  "No  human  being  could  have 
invented  them."^  I  am  not  trying  to  exonerate  the  Queen  or  to 
vindicate  the  sentiments  of  the  Revue  des  Questions  Historiques:  but 
unless  I  am  mistaken  a  jury  of  Scottish  experts  would  return  a  verdict 
of  Not  Proven,  while  Mr.  R.  S.  Rait  goes  so  far  as  to  say  in  reviewing 
Mr.  Lang's  Mystery  of  Mary  Stuart  for  the  English  Historical  Review : 
"The  Mystery  of  Mary  Stuart  remains  a  mystery.  There  is  a  doubt, 
and  while  the  question  remains  in  suspense  the  Queen  should  have 
the  benefit  of  it." 

Were  it  necessary  one  might  collect  a  large  number  of  obiter  dicta 
from  the  pages  of  Ranke,  including  some  passages  which  assuredly 
will  not  stand  the  test  of  time.  And  if  the  master  does  not  always 
reach  the  goal  he  aimed  at,  what  shall  be  said  of  others?  At  this 
time  of  day  it  is  either  banal  or  insulting  to  praise  the  erudition  of 
Germany,  and  in  history  the  great  objective  of  German  scholarship 
is  scientific  accuracy.  Yet  virtue  itself  'scapes  not  calumnious 
strokes,  and  Droysen,  whose  essay  on  the  elevation  of  history  to  the 
rank  of  a  science  is  justly  famous,  incurs  along  with  others  the  severe 
censure  of  MM.  Langlois  and  Seignobos.  In  the  chapter  on  exposition 
which  these  strict  exponents  of  historical  science  have  written 
conjointly,  occurs  an  unsparing  castigation  of  the  careless  vulgarizer. 
"On  the  other  hand,"  the  text  continues,  "men  whose  information 

»  History  of  England,  English  translation.   Clarendon  Press,  1876,  vol.  i,  p.  273. 


162  MODERN   HISTORY   OF   EUROPE 

is  all  that  could  be  desired,  whose  monographs  intended  for  special- 
ists are  full  of  merit,  sometimes  show  themselves  capable,  when  they 
write  for  the  public,  of  grave  offenses  against  scientific  method. 
The  Germans  are  habitual  offenders:  consider  Mommsen,  Droysen, 
Curtius,  and  Lamprecht.  The  reason  is  that  these  authors,  when  they 
address  the  public,  wish  to  produce  an  effect  upon  it.  Their  desire  to 
make  a  strong  impression  leads  them  to  a  certain  relaxation  of  sci- 
entific rigor,  and  to  the  old  rejected  habits  of  ancient  historiography. 
These  men,  scrupulous  and  minute  as  they  are  when  they  are  engaged 
in  establishing  details,  abandon  themselves,  in  their  exposition  of 
general  questions,  to  their  natural  impulses  like  the  common  run 
of  men.  They  take  sides,  they  censure,  they  extol;  they  color,  they 
embellish;  they  allow  themselves  to  be  influenced  by  personal, 
patriotic,  moral,  or  metaphysical  considerations.  And  over  and 
above  all  this  they  apply  themselves,  with  their  several  degrees  of 
talent,  to  the  task  of  producing  works  of  art;  in  this  endeavor  those 
who  have  no  talent  make  themselves  ridiculous,  and  the  talent  of 
those  who  have  any  is  spoilt  by  their  preoccupation  with  the  effect 
they  wish  to  produce."  ^ 

I  quote  the  foregoing  strictures,  not  because  they  have  the  inter- 
est which  belongs  to  writings  of  a  slightly  polemical  character,  but 
because  the  passage  makes  a  sharp  distinction  between  monographs 
well  done  and  popular  histories  badly  done.  The  monographs  are 
concerned  chiefly  with  the  establishment  of  particular  facts.  The 
popular  treatise  is  designed  to  give  order,  connection,  and  some  de- 
gree, at  least,  of  meaning  to  those  facts.  Perhaps,  as  MM.  Langlois 
and  Seignobos  suggest,  the  Germans  are  less  successful  in  the  latter 
than  in  the  former  field;  but  even  allowing  that  their  performance  is 
open  to  criticism  on  the  ground  of  personal  and  patriotic  prejudice, 
they,  like  other  human  beings,  cannot  exclude  convictions  and 
even  opinions  from  histories  of  this  type.  There  is  reason  in  every- 
thing. If  a  writer,  however  learned,  suffers  his  judgment  to  be 
warped  by  prejudice  of  any  kind,  he  will  be  found  out  and  his  learn- 
ing will  not  save  him.  Nevertheless,  the  historian  whose  views  are 
something  more  than  prejudices  will  carry  conviction,  if  his  facts 
are  undeniable  and  his  argument  seems  sound.  Nor  is  this  result 
less  likely  to  be  secured  in  the  field  of  general  history  than  in  that 
of  monograph.  In  his  autobiography  Darwin  calls  the  Origin  of 
Species  one  long  argument,  and  on  analysis  it  may  prove  that 
many  a  book  is  good  history  though  decidedly  tinged  with  the 
author's  opinions. 

MM.  Langlois  and  Seignobos  direct  their  attention  to  the  short- 
comings of  German  historians,  but  the  Histoire  Ginerale  itself  is  not 
without  touches  which  reveal  the  presence  of  personal  feeling  or 
'  Introduction  to  the  Study  of  History  (English  translation),  pp.  313-314. 


HISTORICAL  SYNTHESIS  163 

opinion.  To  begin  with,  a  certain  predilection  for  the  interests  of 
France  may  be  observed  in  the  scale  of  the  work,  and  though  the 
general  tone  is  excellent,  one  now  and  then  sees  national  pride  welling 
up  within  the  heart  of  the  historian.  For  example,  M.  Denis,  at  the 
close  of  his  chapter  on  the  Thirty  Years'  War,  introduces  a  sentence 
or  two  which,  however  natural  and  justifiable,  must  impress  the 
reader  as  being  slightly  tinged  with  purple.  "  In  achieving  the  ruin 
of  imperial  authority,  the  Peace  of  Westphalia  completed  the  work 
of  Luther  and  marked  the  end  of  a  constitutional  development 
which  from  the  fall  of  the  Hohenstaufen  tended  to  transform  Germany 
into  a  princely  oligarchy,  and  it  also  prepared  for  the  revival  of 
German  nationality  which  little  by  little  was  to  group  itself  around 
the  princes.  From  the  congress  of  Miinster  and  Osnabriick  modern 
Germany  really  dates.  As  at  the  Capetian  epoch,  as  at  the  Revolu- 
tion, the  glory  of  France  coincided  with  the  distinct  advance  of 
humanity."  ^  Here  is  the  note  of  patriotism.  The  note  of  dogmatism 
is  struck  by  M.  Seignobos  himself  at  the  close  of  his  text-book  on 
the  political  history  of  modern  Europe.  "  The  revolution  of  1830  was 
the  work  of  a  group  of  obscure  republicans,  aided  by  the  blunders  of 
Charles  X.  The  revolution  of  1848  was  the  work  of  certain  demo- 
cratic agitators,  aided  by  Louis  Philippe's  sudden  lack  of  nerve.  The 
war  of  1870  was  the  personal  work  of  Bismarck,  prepared  by  Napo- 
leon Ill's  personal  policy.  For  these  three  unforeseen  facts  no  general 
cause  can  be  discerned  in  the  intellectual,  economic,  or  political  con- 
dition of  Europe.  It  was  three  accidents  that  determined  the  political 
evolution  of  modem  Europe."  ^  Without  breaking  a  lance  over  this 
particular  utterance,  it  may  be  pointed  out  that  all  such  epigrammatic 
statements  about  compUcated  phenomena  represent  pure  opinion, 
and  depend  for  their  value  not  upon  their  consonance  with  absolute 
truth  but  upon  their  inherent  power  to  persuade. 

Among  English  historians  Stubbs  and  Gardiner  have  the  brightest 
reputation  for  that  kind  of  impartiality  which  shines  out  through 
the  course  of  a  monumental  work.  Macaulay,  Carlyle,  Green,  and 
Froude,  whatever  their  other  merits,  cannot  be  brought  into  the 
comparison  at  this  point;  and  even  though  we  admit  Freeman's 
character  to  have  survived  the  onslaughts  of  Mr.  Round,  the  Nor- 
man Conquest  can  hardly,  in  respect  to  form,  be  taken  as  a  model 
of  scientific  history.  Some  people  may  deem  Stubbs  dull,  but  Pro- 
fessor Maitland  has  told  how  he  first  picked  up  the  Constitutional 
History  in  a  London  club  and  read  it  because  he  found  it  interesting.' 

'  Histoire  Generale,  vol.  v,  p.  582. 

'  Political  History  of  Europe  since  I8I4  (translated  by  Macvane),  p.  847. 

'  English  Historical  Review,  vol.  xvi,  p.  422. 

Another  passage  in  Maitland's  appreciation  of  Stubbs  (English  Historical 
Review,  vol.  xvi,  pp.  417-426)  may  be  quoted  as  cognate  to  the  main  motive  of 
this  discussion.  "  At  least  there  should,  so  it  seems  to  me,  be  no  doubt  about  the 
award  that  should  be  made  in  this  journal.    The  greatness  of  historians  can  be 


164  MODERN   HISTORY   OF   EUROPE 

Probably  most  of  us  who  are  here  will  agree  to  the  justice  of  this 
opinion;  and  to  me  it  seems  that  the  book  is  attractive  not  merely 
because  the  author  is  so  careful  to  refrain  from  making  general 
statements  on  insufficient  grounds,  but  because  there  is  so  much  of 
the  wise  and  temperate  man  in  the  appreciation  of  characters  and 
national  tendencies.  One  would  not  look  in  vain  for  passages  where 
his  authority  might  be  called  in  question,  particularly  before  the 
Conquest  and  after  the  middle  of  the  thirteenth  century.  The  es- 
sential thing  is  that  his  judgments  cannot  be  dissociated  from  his 
temperament  and  principles,  especially  where  a  moral  issue  arises. 
The  concluding  pages  of  his  third  volume,  with  their  copious  use  of 
analogy,  illustration,  and  tempered  eloquence,  bring  him  to  the  con- 
fines of  rhetoric,  nor  does  he  shrink  here  or  in  other  writings  from 
letting  us  see  what  he  really  thinks  of  Puritanism. 

As  for  Gardiner,  he  is  crowned  with  the  bright  laurel  that  belongs 
to  one  who  has  treated  fearlessly,  candidly,  and  with  unbounded 
wealth  of  learning  the  most  controverted  period  of  English  history. 
Still  he  is  by  no  means  a  stranger  to  the  methods  of  the  law  court 
and  the  language  of  the  pulpit.  His  answer  to  Father  Gerard  in  the 
matter  of  Gunpowder  Plot  is  an  argument  which,  unjustly  I  think, 
has  been  taxed  with  special  pleading;  the  conclusion  to  his  little 
volume  on  the  Thirty  Years'  War  is  aglow  with  the  fire  of  Macaulay; 
and  he  does  not  hesitate  to  incorporate  in  his  History  of  England 
an  outburst  like  this,  which  is  prompted  by  the  undisguised  con- 
victions of  a  Protestant:  "The  world  was  to  learn  that  there  were 
men  who  were  ready  to  suffer  and  to  die,  if  need  be,  on  behalf  of 
principles  more  true,  and  of  an  order  more  fruitful  of  a  good  and 
noble  life  than  anything  which  Ferdinand  and  Maximilian  had  found 
it  possible  to  conceive.  From  the  study  of  Bacon,  from  the  parsonage 
of  George  Herbert,  from  the  pulpit  of  Baxter,  from  the  prison  of 
Eliot,  a  light  was  to  break  forth,  splendid  in  its  multiplicity  of  color 
and  of  brilliancy,  which  would  teach  the  world  to  shrink  from  anarchy 
and  despotism  alike,  and  to  intrust  the  treasure  of  its  moral  and 
intellectual  progress  to  ordered  liberty."  *  In  a  letter  to  Freeman, 
J.  R.  Green  expresses  admiration  of  Gardiner,  and  can  quite  under- 
stand why,  striving  as  he  does  to  banish  "loose  talk,"  he  should 
look  askance  at  the  influence  which  the  Short  History  might  have  in 

measured  along  many  different  standards,  and  far  be  it  from  any  one  to  speak 
slightingly  of  the  man  who,  without  adding  to  what  was  known  W  the  learned, 
has  charmed  and  delighted  and  instructed  large  masses  of  men.  His  place  may 
be  high,  and  even  the  highest,  provided  that  he  be  honest  and  reasonably  indus- 
trious in  the  search  for  truth.  But  such  a  man  wiU  find  his  reward  in  many 
places.  Here  we  have  to  think  first  of  the  augmentation  of  knowledge  —  the 
direct  augmentation  which  takes  place  when  the  historian  discovers  and  publishes 
what  has  not  been  known,  and  the  indirect  augmentation  which  takes  place 
when  his  doings  and  his  method  have  become  a  model  and  an  example  for  other 
scholars.  And  here  Dr.  Stubbs  surely  stood  supreme." 
'  History  of  England,  vol.  v,  p.  169. 


HISTORICAL  SYNTHESIS  165 

bringing  it  back  again.*  But  for  "loose  talk/'  interpreting  the  phrase 
to  mean  picturesque  and  rhetorical  language,  there  surely  is  nothing 
in  Green  which  goes  beyond  this. 

Whatever  scoffers  may  urge  to  the  contrary,  history  has  one 
thing  in  common  with  truth,  since  both  are  extremely  polygonal; 
and  if,  as  the  wizard  sang  to  Bellicent,  "  truth  is  this  to  me  and  that 
to  thee,"  the  day  is  probably  long  hence  when  our  conception  of  the 
summum  bonum  in  history  will  be  reduced  to  the  dead  level  of  same- 
ness. Had  Leibnitz  carried  his  brilliant  project  a  little  farther 
and  taught  mankind  to  think  in  symbols  instead  of  words,  he  would 
have  rendered  history  a  greater  service  than  he  did  by  writing  the 
Annals  of  the  House  of  Brunswick.  Then  we  should  not  waste  time 
over  definitions  and  beat  the  air  in  the  hope  of  establishing  a  useful 
conclusion.  Professor  Flint  is  writing  a  history  of  the  philosophies 
of  history.  His  task  would  have  been  greater  still  had  he  called  his 
work  a  history  of  the  conceptions  of  history,  for  many  conceptions 
worth  taking  note  of  never  crystallized  into  the  polished  diamond  of 
a  philosophy.  Basing  our  forecast  of  the  future  upon  the  experience 
of  the  past,  may  we  not  surmise  that  conceptions  of  history  will  be 
modified  in  each  generation  by  the  expanding  consciousness  of 
mankind?  At  present  many  of  the  ablest  and  most  learned  historians 
restrict  their  efforts  to  the  determination  of  facts  by  scientific  pro- 
cess and  deem  it  futile  to  attempt  more.  Doubtless  this  contention 
represents  an  extremely  important  point  of  view.  It  only  remains 
to  ask  whether  the  vista  towards  coordination  is  finally  and  irre- 
vocably closed. 

Not  long  ago  Professor  Fling,  in  a  thoughtful  paper  on  historical 
synthesis,  discussed  the  relationship  of  history  and  science  as  it  has 
appeared  to  writers  like  Droysen,  Rhomberg,  Lamprecht,  Rickert, 
Miinsterberg,  and  Xenopol.  His  own  deliverance  in  the  matter  is 
supported  by  considerations  regarding  the  logic  of  the  historical 
concept,  and  may  be  stated  briefly  as  follows:  "If  historians  and 
sociologists  can  agree  that  both  deal  with  the  past  of  society,  but 
from  different  points  of  view;  that  one  looks  at  it  from  the  point  of 
view  of  a  unique  evolution,  and  the  other  from  the  point  of  view  of 
general  facts  and  laws;  that  as  their  ends  differ,  their  methods  must 
differ;  that  there  would  be  no  confusion  if  we  retained  the  term 
history  for  the  older  point  of  view  and  employed  the  term  sociology 
for  the  later  —  if  these  fundamental  points  could  be  agreed  upon, 
the  debate  would  be  over."  Such  is  his  general  conclusion,  which  is 
attended  also  by  a  corollary:  "As  long  as  men  seek  for  knowledge 
of  the  unique  evolution  of  their  social  past,  just  so  long  will  the 
historical  method  be  justifiable  and  the  historical  synthesis,  the 
synthesis  of  Thucydides,  of  Tacitus,  of  Gibbon,  and  of  Ranke,  will 
*  Letters  of  John  Richard  Green,  edited  by  Leslie  Stephen,  p.  425. 


166  MODERN   HISTORY  OF    EUROPE 

be  scientific,  although  it  will  never  be  the  synthesis  of  the  natural 
sciences."  * 

In  echoing  Professor  Fling's  sentiments  concerning  the  worth  of 
the  historical  classics,  I  would  not  for  a  moment  assume  that  there  is 
in  any  quarter  a  disposition  to  disparage  the  best  work  done  before 
1825  or  to  deny  that  it  has  high  merit  of  some  kind.  Nor  would  I 
approach  this  subject  in  a  spirit  the  most  faintly  resembling  con- 
troversy. Frankly  speaking,  I  doubt  whether  academic  utterances 
as  to  what  history  is  or  should  be,  help  us  very  far  forward.  We  all 
understand  the  fundamental  value  of  truthful  information,  and 
prize  the  processes  by  which  alone  it  can  be  gained.  Likewise  we 
prefer  a  thoughtful  presentation  of  facts  to  a  shallow  one,  and  good 
writing  to  bad.  Ranke,  with  his  wonted  saneness,  has  said  nearly  all 
there  is  to  say.  Referring  to  the  difficulty  of  writing  a  continuous 
national  history,  he  observes:  "Who  could  apply  critical  research, 
such  as  the  progress  of  study  now  renders  necessary,  to  the  mass 
of  materials  already  collected,  without  being  lost  in  its  immensity? 
Who  again  could  possess  the  vivid  susceptibility  requisite  for  doing 
justice  to  the  several  epochs,  for  appreciating  the  actions,  the  modes 
of  thought,  and  the  moral  standard  of  each  of  them,  and  for  under- 
standing their  relations  to  universal  history?  We  must  be  content  in 
this  department  as  in  others  if  we  can  but  approximate  the  ideal  we 
set  up.    The  best  written  histories  will  be  accounted  the  best."  ^ 

Is  it  not  fair  to  describe  the  state  of  the  case  under  some  such 
form  as  this?  Many  have  the  kind  of  capacity  which  is  needed  to 
collect  and  sift  historical  facts.  On  the  other  hand,  the  number  of 
those  who  can  turn  these  facts  to  any  use  above  mere  compilation  is 
relatively  small.  The  conditions  are  the  same  elsewhere.  Mr.  Bryce, 
for  one,  has  remarked  and  commented  upon  them.  "  Knowledge 
fossilized  in  a  concrete  invention,"  he  says,  "  or  even  in  a  mathemat- 
ical formula,  is  a  sort  of  tool  ready  to  every  hand.  But  a  method, 
though  serviceable  to  everybody,  becomes  eminently  fruitful  only 
when  wielded  by  the  same  kind  of  original  genius  as  that  which  made 
discoveries  by  the  less  perfect  methods  of  older  days.  This  is  appar- 
ent even  in  inquiries  which  seem  to  reside  chiefly  in  collection  and 
computation.  Everybody  tries  nowadays  to  use  statistics.  But  the 
people  who  by  means  of  statistics  can  throw  really  fresh  and  brilliant 
light  on  a  problem  are  as  few  as  ever  they  were." ' 

For  few  is  it  reserved  to  write  great  histories,  whether  these  be 
labeled  works  of  science,  or  of  art,  or  of  sociology.  And  yet  one  cannot 
think  that  study  of  the  past  bears  its  best  fruit  save  where  the  student 
has  a  habit  of  mind  which  impels  him  to  consider  connections  as 

'  American  Historical  Review,  vol.  ix,  pp.  20-22. 

*  History  of  England.   English  translation  (Clarendon  Press),  vol.  r,  pp.  v,  vi. 

*  Helmolt's  History  of  the  World  (English  translation) ,  vol.  i,  p.  xlix. 


HISTORICAL  SYNTHESIS  167 

well  as  events.  I  imagine  that  we  are  all  skeptical  enough  about 
political  prophecy  and  the  formulation  of  historical  laws.  Fortunately 
we  can  have  a  synthesis  which  will  illuminate  portions  of  the  past 
and  stimulate  our  thought,  without  the  introduction  of  scholastic 
language,  the  wrangle  over  definitions,  and  the  restless  desire  to  reach 
some  goal.  A  few  years  ago  a  new  historical  periodical  was  being 
started,  and  I  asked  one  of  its  promoters  (a  scholar  whose  name 
is  familiar  to  all  present)  if  the  projected  magazine  would  resemble 
another  which  I  named.  "Oh  dear,  no!"  he  repHed.  "No  one 
reads  that.  We  want  ours  to  sell  on  the  news-stands."  This  was 
a  hopeful  aspiration  —  for  a  quarterly!  Whether  or  not  it  has  been 
gratified  may  possibly  be  learned  by  inquiry  at  the  Carnegie  Institu- 
tion. MM.  Langlois  and  Seignobos  condemn  German  historians  for 
trying  to  impress  the  public,  but  what  kind  of  writing  comes  closer 
to  the  educated  layman  than  history,  with  the  exception  of  pure 
literature?  Here  is  a  perpetual  incentive  to  synthetic  effort,  and 
if  scholars  permit  the  public  to  suffer  at  the  hands  of  second-rate 
vulgarizers,  it  may  be  at  the  double  cost  to  themselves  of  duty 
neglected  and  faculty  untrained. 

There  is,  of  course,  no  recipe  for  preparing  the  historical  master- 
piece which  becomes  a  symbol  of  national  erudition  or  a  glory  of 
the  national  literature;  but  in  the  body  of  this  paper  I  have  tried 
to  emphasize  the  essential  ingredient,  namely,  the  genius  of  the 
author.  The  man  who  thinks  himself  so  complete  a  master  of  his- 
torical synthesis  that  when  he  opens  his  lips  he  is  declaring  a  verity 
of  science,  would  seem,  however  learned  and  gifted,  to  be  working  on 
a  false  theory.  The  best  historians  when  they  coordinate  make 
errors  of  omission,  statement,  judgment,  taste,  and  style,  —  being 
human  and  using  the  fluid  vehicle  of  human  thought.  Yet  is  this 
a  reason  why  one  should  attempt  to  efface  himself  or  keep  back  his 
mature  opinions,  in  the  hope  that  by  so  doing  he  shall  more  nearly 
approximate  absolute  truth?  This  query  is  not  intended  to  furnish 
a  loophole  for  the  extenuation  of  prejudice  or  the  encouragement  of 
"  loose  talk."  It  is  suggested  by  the  practice  of  historians  Uke  Ranke, 
Stubbs,  and  Gardiner,  whose  identity  can  be  discerned  in  their  works 
and  whose  works  derive  value  from  the  presence  of  that  identity.  It 
is  the  purest  truism  that  the  historical  point  of  view  shifts  from  age 
to  age,  and  that  as  regards  innumerable  questions  relating  to  the 
past  it  may  be  said  quot  homines  tot  sententiae.  None  the  less  each 
generation  demands  its  own  synthesis  and  exacts  the  best  attainable. 
One  should  read  what  Merlin  says  to  Vivien  about  fame  if  he  feels 
grieved  at  knowing  how  certainly  his  book  will  perish  unless  pre- 
serv^ed  by  the  force  of  its  ideas  or  the  beauty  of  its  form.  Still  it  may 
be  serviceable  while  it  lasts. 

In  no  department  of  history  is  the  problem  of  synthesis  more 


168  MODERN   HISTORY  OF    EUROPE 

urgent  than  in  that  of  modern  poUtics,  where  the  data  are  over- 
whelming and  one's  judgment  is  apt  to  be  influenced  either  by 
patriotic  instinct  or  social  theory. 

A  single  word  in  conclusion.  Lord  Acton  praises  robust  impar- 
tiality, and  I  am  following  a  famous  precedent  of  Newman  when  I 
state  the  case  against  myself  as  strongly  as  possible.  The  one  topic 
which  runs  through  the  foregoing  remarks  is  the  personal  element  in 
historical  synthesis,  together  with  the  bearing  of  the  author's  per- 
sonality upon  the  scientific  character  of  his  work.  Professor  Bury 
said  last  year  at  Cambridge:  "When  the  ultimate  history  of  Ger- 
many in  the  nineteenth  century  comes  to  be  written,  it  will  differ 
widely  from  Treitschke's  work,  but  that  brilliant  book  can  never 
cease  to  be  a  characteristic  document  of  its  epoch."  ^  One  goes 
considerably  past  this  point  in  suggesting  that  our  sense  of  histor- 
ical truth  may  be  deepened  by  familiarity  with  Michelet,  Quinet, 
Macaulay,  and  Green.  I  hesitate  only  at  the  name  of  Froude. 
*  The  Science  of  History,  p.  34. 


SECTION  E- HISTORY  OF  AMERICA 


SECTION  E- HISTORY  OF  AMERICA 


{Hall  1,  September  24,  10  o.  m.) 

Chairman:   Dr.  James  Schouler,  Boston. 

Speakers:  Professor  Edward  G.  Bourne,  Yale  University. 

Professor  Frederic  J.  TtrnNER,  University  of  Wisconsin. 
Secretary:  Professor  Evarts  B.  Greene,  University  of  Illinois. 

The  Section  of  History  of  America  was  presided  over  by  Dr.  James 
Schouler,  of  Boston,  who  gave  an  interesting  opening  address,  in 
which  the  conditions  under  which  the  early  settlement  of  the  Miss- 
issippi Valley  took  place,  and  the  growth  of  the  two  young  cities  of 
New  Orleans  and  St.  Louis  through  the  colonial  and  ante-bellum 
struggles,  was  contrasted  with  present  conditions,  where  the  modern 
St.  Louis,  the  solid  and  substantial  municipality,  ranking  among  the 
foremost  of  the  cities  of  the  New  World,  gathered  within  its  borders 
visitors  and  scholars  from  every  nation  in  the  world.  The  Chairman 
then  commented  upon  the  influence  of  the  French  in  the  Mississippi 
Valley  and  the  changes  which  followed  the  purchase  of  the  Louisiana 
territory  by  the  United  States.  "  This  vast  Louisiana  annexation,  so 
significant  for  our  high  mission  on  this  continent,  came  suddenly 
and  unlooked  for,  like  the  New  World's  discovery  by  Columbus  three 
centuries  or  more  earlier.  It  did  not  come  as  the  gradual  fruition  of 
ideas  and  experience,  like  our  Revolution,  our  Monroe  Doctrine,  or 
the  great  civil  conflict  of  186  L  To  a  federo-national  Union,  but 
lately  put  in  practical  operation  under  its  constitutional  scheme  of 
government,  and  content  with  its  existing  domain,  it  was  Uke  the 
unexpected  lifting  of  a  curtain  which  disclosed  new  possessions 
toward  the  Rocky  Mountains  wholly  unlooked  for.  To  a  young  and 
aspiring  people  all  this  came  as  a  revelation,  the  harbinger  of  a  new 
and  grander  destiny."  Concluding,  the  speaker  paid  an  eloquent 
tribute  to  Napoleon,  Marbois,  Livingston,  Monroe,  and  Jefferson,  the 
great  actors  in  the  international  drama. 


THE    RELATION    OF    AMERICAN    HISTORY    TO     OTHER 
FIELDS   OF   HISTORICAL   STUDY 

BY    EDWARD    GAYLORD    BOURNE 

[Edward  Gaylord  Bourne,  Professor  of  History,  Yale  University,  since  1895.  b . 
June  24,  1860,  Strykersville,  New  York.  B.A.  Yale,  1883;  Ph.D.  Urid.,  1892. 
Lecturer  on  Political  Science  and  Instructor  in  History,  Yale  University, 
1886-88;   Instructor   in    History,   Adelbert   College,    1888-90;    Professor   of 

History,   ibid.    1890-95;    Professor  of  History,  Yale    University,    1895 . 

Member  of  Council  of  American  Historical  Association;  Member  of  American 
Antiquarian  Society;  Corresponding  Member  of  the  Massachusetts  Historical 
Society.  Author  of  History  of  the  Surplus  Revenue  of  1837;  Essays  in  Histor- 
ical Criticism;  Spain  in  America ;  Historical  Introduction  to  "The  Philippine 
Islands " ;  Editor  of  Narratives  of  Hernando  de  Soto ;  Voyages  and  Explora- 
tion.f  of  Champlain.] 

Ladies  and  Gentlemen,  —  The  subject  assigned  for  the  second 
paper  this  morning  is  the  Relation  of  American  History  to  Other 
Fields  of  Historical  Study,  and  the  officers  of  the  Congress  had  most 
appropriately  selected  Professor  Hart  of  Harvard  University  to 
discuss  this  theme.  That  he  has  found  it  impracticable  to  be  here 
owing  to  a  pressure  of  other  work  is  to  be  regretted  for  many  reasons. 
It  was,  indeed,  most  fitting  that  the  institution  which  was  the  pioneer 
in  this  country  in  developing  systematic  historical  studies  as  a  part 
of  its  curriculum,  and  which  is  still  the  leader  in  that  work .  should 
be  represented  at  this  gathering;  nor  was  it  less  suitable  that  the 
man  to  represent  Harvard  and  the  study  of  American  history  should 
be  the  one  upon  whom  as  an  organizer  of  historical  labors  has  fallen 
the  mantle  of  Justin  Winsor. 

In  our  common  usage,  the  content  of  the  term  American  history 
embraces  the  history  of  the  discovery  of  the  New  World,  a  most 
cursory  glance  at  the  Spanish  Conquest,  the  colonization  of  the 
eastern  coast  by  the  English,  the  American  Revolution,  and  the 
political  history  of  the  United  States.  Such  a  restriction  of  meaning 
is  a  natural  outgrowth  of  circumstances  in  this  country. 

In  this  place,  however,  near  the  centre  of  the  continent  first 
explored  by  the  Spaniards,  on  the  great  river  discovered  by  De  Soto, 
and  not  so  very  many  hours'  ride  from  a  point  reached  by  Coronado 
from  the  shores  of  the  Pacific  over  three  hundred  and  sixty  years 
ago,  so  narrow  a  construction  of  American  history  may  rightly  give 
way  to  one  which  assigns  to  the  Spanish  American  world  a  position 
more  truly  in  accord  with  its  real  historical  significance  in  the  history 
of  the  race.  It  is  the  relation  of  American  history  in  this  broader 
sense,  the  history  of  the  activities  and  achievements  of  Europeans 
in  the  New  World,  to  the  history  of  Europe  and  the  history  of  the 
United  States,  to  which  I  invite  your  attention. 


RELATIONS  OF  AMERICAN  HISTORY  173 

In  reflecting  upon  this  subject,  my  thoughts  have  grouped  them- 
selves around  four  general  inquiries:  What  should  be  the  attitude  of 
the  student  of  European  history  to  American  history?  what  does 
American  history  contribute  to  the  interpretation  of  European 
history?  in  what  ways  has  America  affected  the  development  of 
European  life  ?  and,  lastly,  what  advantages  may  be  derived  in  the 
United  States  and  in  Europe  from  a  more  thorough  investigation  and 
a  more  general  study  of  the  history  of  Spanish  America? 

In  regard  to  the  first  part  of  my  subject,  the  proper  attitude  of 
students  of  European  history  toward  American  history,  I  wish  to 
urge  a  more  general  recognition  of  American  history  as  an  integral 
part  of  the  history  of  the  Western  European  peoples;  in  other  words, 
that  the  history  of  Spain,  France,  and  England  should  embrace  the 
history  of  the  Spanish,  French,  and  English  communities  in  the  New 
World  as  a  natural  and  essential  part  of  the  whole  and  not  as  a  mere 
episode  that  may  be  neglected.  In  the  study  and  writing  of  English 
history  this  point  of  view  has  been  more  adequately  realized  than 
in  the  case  of  France  and  Spain.  The  considerations  that  would  be 
urged  to  prove  the  essential  unity  of  the  history  of  the  English  on 
both  sides  of  the  sea  are  familiar  to  all  students,  and  need  not  be 
recapitulated.  The  case  of  France  I  shall  pass  by,  in  order  to  illustrate 
that  of  Spain  and  Spanish  America  more  fully. 

It  is  a  not  uncommon  experience,  although  notable  exceptions 
exist,  to  find  in  narrative  histories  of  Spain  her  interests  in  the  New 
World  treated  incidentally,  if  at  all,  rather  than  regarded  as  an  in- 
tegral element  of  profound  importance  in  the  national  life.  Among 
recent  examples  of  this  procedure,  one  will  suffice  for  illustration. 
In  Martin  Hume's  Spain,  its  Greatness  and  Decay,  in  the  Cambridge 
Historical  Series,  there  are  in  the  period  1555-1788,  covered  by  Major 
Hume's  part  of  the  work,  not  two  pages  devoted  to  the  Spanish  pos- 
sessions beyond  the  sea.  Such  a  narrow,  territorial  view  is  devoid 
of  any  philosophical  perspective,  and  is  a  veritable  impoverishment 
of  history.  In  the  light  of  general  history,  the  Spanish  conquest  of 
America  is  the  greatest,  the  most  far-reaching  in  its  consequences, 
of  all  the  achievements  in  the  life  of  the  nation.  It  is  the  single  event 
in  Spanish  history  that  made  Spain  a  world  power,  and  raised  her  for 
a  time  to  a  place  beside  Rome  as  the  mistress  of  a  world  and  the 
source  of  the  moral,  religious,  and  intellectual  culture  of  a  continent. 
To  write  the  history  of  Spain  and  to  leave  out  the  history  of  Spanish 
America  is  like  writing  the  history  of  Rome  and  confining  one's 
view  to  the  Italian  peninsula.  The  power  of  Spain  has  lapsed  and 
most  of  her  former  over-sea  possessions  are  independent  states,  but 
whatever  becomes  of  her  relative  position  in  Europe,  her  great  con- 
tribution to  the  world's  history  is  certain  to  rise  in  historical  import- 
ance with  the  passage  of  time. 


174  HISTORY  OF  AMERICA 

I  am  aware  that  these  assertions  will  surprise  some  and  perhaps 
be  dismissed  by  others  as  extravagant.  I  propose,  however,  to  elab- 
orate them  somewhat,  to  bring  home  perhaps  more  effectively  my 
point  of  the  essential  oneness  of  American  and  Western  European 
history. 

What,  in  fact,  did  Spain  attempt  in  the  New  World  and  what  did 
she  accomplish?  She  undertook  the  magnificent  if  impossible  task 
of  lifting  a  whole  race  numbering  millions  into  the  sphere  of  European 
thought,  life,  and  religion.  Beside  such  an  enterprise  the  continental 
wars  of  Spain  become  struggles  of  transitory  interest.  But  I  am 
reminded  that  she  failed.  Such  is  the  ready  verdict  that  is  pro- 
nounced in  accordance  with  prevalent  opinion.  But  even  if  the 
attempt  was  in  some  degree  a  failure,  it  was  a  failure  after  the 
fashion  of  the  failure  of  Alexander  the  Great  to  establish  a  per- 
manent Asiatic  Empire,  a  failure  that  has  left  an  ineffaceable 
impress  on  succeeding  ages. 

Yet  the  conception  was  grand,  and  the  effort  to  realize  it  called 
forth  the  best  that  was  in  the  men  who  labored  either  consciously  or 
unconsciously  for  its  accomplishment.  Like  all  great  events  in  human 
history  it  has  its  dark  sides,  and  unfortunately  these  dark  sides, 
through  the  influence  of  national  jealousy  and  religious  prejudice, 
have  commonly  been  thrust  into  the  foreground  by  non-Spanish 
writers. 

The  great  permanent  fact  remains,  however,  after  all  qualifica- 
tions, that  during  the  colonial  period  the  language,  the  religion,  the 
culture,  and  the  political  institutions  of  Castile  were  transplanted 
over  an  area  twenty  times  as  great  as  that  of  the  parent  state.  That 
this  culture  and  religion  seem  to  the  English  Protestant  inferior  to 
his  own  is  natural;  but  while  that  opinion  accounts  for  some  of  the 
prevalent  disparagement  of  the  work  of  Spain  in  America,  its  truth 
or  falsity  is  not  relevant  to  the  present  question.  The  essential 
point  is  that,  outside  of  the  fields  of  art  and  literature,  the  great 
contributions  that  Spain  made  to  human  progress  in  the  sixteenth 
and  seventeenth  centuries  were  made  in  America.  In  such  contri- 
butions to  the  stock  of  knowledge  as  are  derived  from  observation 
in  distinction  from  those  obtained  by  speculative  thought,  she  far 
surpassed  France  and  England.  Immense  additions  to  geography, 
to  linguistics,  to  anthropology,  flowed  from  the  activities  of  her 
explorers  and  scholars.  Nor  were  the  additions  to  the  national 
literature  that  took  their  rise  in  the  New  World  slight  accessions 
to  the  general  body  of  literature  informed  with  the  spirit  of  heroic 
action.  The  dispatches  of  Cortes,  the  True  History  of  Bernal  Diaz, 
may  fairly  claim  consideration  beside  Caesar's  Commentaries.  Nor 
can  one  read  the  story  of  De  Soto's  march,  as  told  by  the  Gentlemen 
of  Elvas  or  Rodrigo  Ranjel  in  the  pages  of  Oviedo,  without  continually 


RELATIONS  OF  AMERICAN  HISTORY  175 

recalling  the  classic  narrative  of  the  retreat  of  the  ten  thousand 
Greeks  from  Cunaxa  to  the  Euxine. 

Enough  has  been  said,  perhaps,  to  raise  a  presumption  for  regard- 
ing the  history  of  Spanish  America  as  an  integral  part  of  the  history 
of  Spain,  but  its  importance  for  the  student  of  Spanish  history  does 
not  end  here.  The  work  of  Spain  in  the  New  World,  defective  as  it 
was  and  adulterated  with  selfish  aims,  offered  an  extraordinary  field 
for  the  display  of  national  and  individual  character.  The  modern 
world  can  have  Uttle  sympathy  with  the  controlling  objects  of  Span- 
ish poUcy  in  European  politics  in  the  second  half  of  the  sixteenth 
century.  PhiUp  II  in  Spain  seems  to  be  putting  forth  herculean 
efforts  to  stay  human  progress.  In  the  Indies  he  shows  a  fairer 
figure.  The  colonial  legislation  of  his  reign,  whatever  its  defects, 
reveals  a  profound  and  humane  interest  in  the  civilization  of  his 
over-sea  dominions.  It  was  one  thing  to  try  to  confine  Europe  to 
the  intellectual  bounds  of  the  Middle  Ages  and  quite  another  to  raise 
primitive  America  to  that  level.  The  long  arm  of  the  king  was 
stretched  out  to  protect  the  weak  and  the  helpless  from  oppression 
and  from  error.  It  did  not  always  do  it,  but  the  honor  of  the  effort 
should  not  be  withheld.  The  contrast  between  Philip  II  as  ruler 
of  the  Netherlands  and  the  Philip  II  who  was  lord  of  the  Indies 
may  be  paralleled  by  the  contrast  between  the  Duke  of  Alva  and 
Hernando  Cortes.  The  conqueror  of  Mexico  is  the  more  universally 
known  of  the  two,  but  the  name  of  no  Spanish  general  of  the  six- 
teenth century  is  more  familiar  in  England  and  America  than  that  of 
Alva.  That  Alva  should  be  popularly  considered  as  a  type  of  Spanish 
character,  and  that  he  should  occupy  a  larger  place  in  histories  of 
the  Spanish  people  than  Cortes,  will  seem  unfortunate,  and  unjust 
in  exact  proportion  as  the  varied  greatness  of  Cortds's  career  is 
appreciated.  How  one-sided,  then,  is  a  national  history  which  finds 
no  adequate  recognition  for  the  nation's  greatest  achievements  just 
because  the  field  of  their  accomplishment  was  beyond  the  sea! 

If  these  considerations  in  regard  to  the  history  of  Spain  and  of 
Spanish  America  are  well  taken,  the  essential  oneness  of  American 
and  Western  European  history  may  be  granted  at  least  the  status  of 
a  fair  presumption,  and  I  may  pass  to  the  next  line  of  inquiry,  What 
does  American  history  contribute  to  the  interpretation  of  European 
history? 

The  occupation  of  the  New  World  by  the  divergent  methods  of 
Spanish  and  English  colonial  policy  repeated  processes  of  profound 
importance  in  the  history  of  civilization  in  regard  to  which  we  have 
comparatively  little  evidence.  The  migration  of  the  English  to 
America  was  like  the  diffusion  of  the  Greeks  to  their  colonies,  and  not 
a  few  of  the  distinctive  features  of  American  life  and  temperament 
that  have  been  noted  by  foreign  observers  were  equally  characteristic 


176  HISTORY  OF  AMERICA 

of  the  Greek  colonial  societies  in  Sicily  and  Italy:  the  pride  in  big 
things;  the  fondness  for  the  florid  in  literature,  art,  and  oratory;  the 
absorption  in  material  interests;  the  self-confidence  and  the  boast- 
fulness. 

The  new  conditions  facing  these  English  on  the  frontiers  of  their 
settlements,  in  the  conquest  from  nature  of  a  home  for  civilized 
man,  compelled  a  readjustment  of  life  to  its  surroundings,  a  simple 
and  elastic  organization  of  society  in  which  the  earlier  life  of  Europe 
was  lived  over  again.  As  time  went  on,  the  frontier  was  pushed 
further  out,  and  in  the  older  settlements  society  became  more  com- 
plex and  conventional,  approaching  the  stability  of  the  mother  coun- 
try. The  thought  is  a  familiar  one  that  on  the  frontier  we  have  been 
able  to  recover  the  conditions  of  colonial  history,  and  in  recovering 
these  conditions  breathe  again  its  atmosphere.  America,  then,  has 
offered  the  student  the  singular  opportunity  of  observing  successive 
periods  of  historical  and  social  development  existing  almost  side  by 
side,  so  that  one  could  lift  the  veil  of  the  past  by  going  west.  This 
thought,  which  has  been  so  richly  developed  and  illustrated  by 
Professor  Turner,^  was  first  fully  realized,  so  far  as  I  know,  by  that 
acute  Frenchman  Talleyrand  when  sojourning  in  America.  I  shall 
take  the  liberty  to  quote  his  observations,  on  the  chance  of  con- 
tributing to  the  history  of  one  of  the  most  fertile  and  instructive 
contributions  ever  made  to  the  interpretation  of  American  history. 
In  his  memoir  on  The  Commercial  Relations  of  the  United  States  with 
England,  read  before  the  Academy  of  Moral  and  Political  Sciences, 
March  25,  1797,  he  says: 

"  Let  us  look  at  these  populous  cities,  full  of  Englishmen,  Germans, 
Irishmen,  and  Dutchmen,  and  also  of  the  native  inhabitants;  these 
remote  hamlets,  so  far  from  one  another;  these  vast  untilled  stretches 
of  country,  traversed  rather  than  lived  in  by  men  who  have  no  settled 
home;  what  common  tie  is  there  to  bind  together  what  is  so  unlike? 
It  is  a  novel  sight  for  the  traveler  who,  starting  from  a  leading  town 
where  the  social  order  is  matured  and  settled,  passes  over  in  succes- 
sion all  the  stages  of  civilization  and  industry  as  they  descend  until 
in  a  very  few  days  he  comes  to  the  crude  and  shapeless  cabin  built 
of  freshly  felled  trees.  Such  a  journey  is  a  kind  of  practical  analysis 
and  living  demonstration  of  the  growth  of  peoples  and  of  states.  One 
starts  from  a  highly  complex  total  and  reaches  the  simplest  elements. 
Day  by  day  one  after  another  of  those  inventions  which  our  multiply- 
ing wants  have  made  necessary  disappears,  and  one  seems  to  be 
traveling  backward  in  the  history  of  the  progress  of  the  human 
mind."  ^ 

•  In  his  Significance  of  the  Frontier  in  American  History,  State  Historical  Soci- 
ety of  Wisconsin,  1894,  and  other  papers. 

'  Mhnoire  sur  les  relcUions  commerciales  des  Et<Us-Uni8  area  V Angleterre;  Me- 


RELATIONS   OF  AMERICAN  HISTORY  177 

Other  ways  in  which  in  American  history  the  processes  of  the  re- 
mote past  have  been  reproduced  can  be  studied  in  the  history  of 
Spanish  America,  where  the  conquest  of  organized  societies  by  alien 
invaders  and  the  bringing  in  of  a  new  civiHzation  help  us  to  visu- 
ahze  the  process  by  which  Africa  became  Roman  or  Syria  Greek. 
Still  again  the  Spanish  missions,  which  from  California  to  Paraguay 
pushed  out  among  the  wild  Indians  and  prepared  them  for  civilized 
life,  will  help  us  to  see  more  clearly  the  processes  by  which  Christ- 
ianity made  its  way  slowly  into  the  recesses  of  Germanic  and  Sla- 
vonic heathenism. 

There  is  still  another  way  in  which  the  American  colonial  com- 
munities offer  instruction  to  the  student  of  European  history.  By 
their  detachment  from  the  main  currents  of  progress  they  formed, 
as  it  were,  eddies  in  which  were  preserved,  still  in  vigorous  life,  much 
that  had  quite  disappeared  in  more  progressive  centres,  and  in  this 
respect  they  may  be  said  to  serve  as  a  kind  of  historical  museum. 

The  rigorous  sifting  of  emigration  from  Spain  and  its  prohibition 
from  other  countries,  coupled  with  a  close  censorship  of  the  press, 
preserved  in  Spanish  America  relatively  undisturbed  the  thought, 
the  life,  and  the  manners  of  Spain  just  as  she  emerged  from  the 
Middle  Ages.  Nearly  forty  years  after  Luther  posted  his  theses  the 
name  Lutheran  conveyed  no  meaning  to  the  people  of  Mexico.  The 
first  auto  da  fe  in  that  city  in  1556  aroused  the  greatest  curiosity, 
and  the  English  merchant  Tomson  reported  that  "there  were  that 
came  one  hundredth  mile  off,  to  see  the  said  Auto  (as  they  call  it), 
for  that  there  were  never  none  before,  that  had  done  the  like  in  the 
said  country,  nor  could  not  tell  what  Lutherans  were,  nor  what  it 
meant;  for  that  they  never  heard  of  any  such  thing  before."^  The 
effects  of  a  similar  policy  survive  to  the  present  day  in  French 
Canada,  where  one  can  still  observe  the  piety  of  pre-Reformation 
Europe. 

In  like  manner,  Puritanism  dominated  New  England  over  a  cen- 
tury after  its  sway  was  broken  in  the  mother  country.  The  English 
traveler  who  came  to  Boston  in  1692  not  only  crossed  the  Atlantic 
but  he  went  back  in  time  a  half  a  century.  Such  a  tragedy  as  the 
witchcraft  trials  would  have  been  impossible  in  England  in  1692, 
although  in  perfect  accord  with  the  spirit  and  beliefs  of  the  time 
of  the  Long  Parliament  and  the  Commonwealth.  In  fact,  the  good 
and  evil  of  English  Puritanism  are  nowhere  so  marked  as  in  New 
England.  There  it  was  segregated,  dominant,  and  lived  out  its  life. 

I  proposed  as  the  third  subdivision  of  my  subject  to  indicate  some 
of  the  ways  in  which  America  has  affected  European  life  by  reaction. 

moires  de  VInstituI  National  des  Sciences  et  Arts:  Sciences  Morales  el  Politiques, 
Paris,  An  vii,  t.  ii,  p.  100. 

'  Hakluyt,  Voyages  (Goldsmid's  ed.),  xiv,  146. 


178  HISTORY  OF   AMERICA 

In  the  ample  scope  of  the  New  World  the  dominant  currents  of 
national  life  found  an  outlet  for  a  less  confined  flow,  and  tendencies 
restrained  or  impeded  at  home  from  free  action  were  released.  The 
Spanish  and  French  colonial  establishments  were  founded  at  a  time 
when  the  Crown  was  aiming  to  extend  and  systematize  its  powers, 
and  in  the  New  World,  unhampered  by  traditions  and  usages,  it 
became  all  powerful.  The  tendency  to  absolutism  at  home  was 
effectively  reinforced  by  the  exercise  of  it  in  the  dependencies,  Eng- 
land, on  the  other  hand,  began  the  continuous  occupation  of  America 
when  the  current  was  in  the  opposite  direction  and  the  tide  was 
slowly  rising  against  the  royal  authority,  and  here  again  the  national 
drift  was  accelerated.  The  large  measure  of  local  liberties  enjoyed 
by  the  English  colonies,  the  free  migration  of  sects,  were  quite  as 
much  the  result  of  the  actual  condition  of  English  politics  at  the 
time  as  of  preconceived  convictions.  Settled  under  these  circumstances 
and  left  mainly  to  themselves,  the  colonies  became  the  field  for 
working  out  social  experiments  which  would  have  been  impossible 
in  Europe,  and  whose  successful  issue  has  profoimdly  influenced  all 
after-life. 

The  most  signal  instance  of  this  is  afforded  by  the  history  of 
religious  toleration.  In  the  sixteenth  and  seventeenth  centuries  it 
was  a  widespread  and  deeply  rooted  opinion  that  religious  liberty 
would  undermine  society.  The  social  dangers  of  free  thought  far 
outweighed  what  seem  to  many  to-day  the  economic  perils  of  free 
trade.  That  they  were  real  dangers  seemed  to  be  unhappily  proved 
by  the  aberrations  of  the  Reformation  in  Europe.  If  abstract  reason- 
ing makes  little  headway  to-day  in  the  matter  of  securing  free  trade, 
we  may  imagine  how  impotent  arguments  in  favor  of  free  thought 
must  have  been.  The  risks  of  failure  were  too  great  for  the  experi- 
ment to  be  tried.  In  America,  however,  an  opportunity  was  offered 
through  the  institution  of  the  proprietary  colonies  for  a  thorough 
trial,  which  demonstrated  on  a  considerable  scale  the  safety  and 
advantage  of  a  larger  measure  of  rehgious  liberty.  For  a  colonial 
proprietor  or  company  to  derive  any  profit,  his  lands  must  be  sold  or 
rented.  To  get  people  was  the  first  need,  and  the  strongest  induce- 
ments must  be  offered.  In  the  seventeenth  century  the  prospect  of 
religious  freedom  made  a  powerful  appeal  both  in  England  and 
Germany.  The  experiment  was  first  tried  by  Lord  Baltimore  in 
Maryland,  and  its  demonstrated  success  was  followed  by  its  adoption 
by  the  proprietors  of  the  Carolinas  and  Jerseys  for  utilitarian  reasons. 
The  harmlessness  and  advantages  of  religious  toleration  were 
effectively  demonstrated  in  Colonial  America,  principally  in  the 
proprietary  colonies.  It  spread  from  these  till  it  became  characteristic 
of  the  United  States,  and  from  that  vantage-ground  so  imposing 
an  example  of  its  benefits,  powerfully  contributed  to  its  adoption 


RELATIONS  OF  AMERICAN  HISTORY  179 

throughout  Western  Europe.  Who  can  affirm  that  religious  hberty 
with  its  enormous  increment  to  ordinary  human  happiness  could 
have  been  attained  even  in  the  twentieth  century,  without  the  lesson 
of  the  experiments  in  Maryland  and  Rhode  Island,  the  Carolinas,  the 
Jerseys,  New  York  and  Pennsylvania? 

Still  again,  in  America  the  theories  of  Locke  seemed  to  explain 
the  facts  of  society,  and  became  the  people's  political  creed.  In- 
corporated in  the  Declaration  of  Independence  and  the  State  Bills 
of  Rights,  these  principles  exerted  an  infinitely  greater  force  upon 
France,  and  through  France  upon  Euro)  o  and  South  America,  than 
could  by  any  possibility  have  flowed  dii.  ctly  from  the  Two  Essays 
on  Government.  It  is  needless  here  to  expatiate  upon  so  familiar 
a  topic  as  the  rise  of  democracy  in  America  and  its  diffusion  from 
these  shores,  or  upon  the  development  of  written  constitutions  and 
their  spread  over  the  world,  after  the  most  interesting  contributions 
of  Borgeaud  to  those  subjects. 

Passing  now  to  my  concluding  thought,  I  shall  try  to  point  out 
certain  advantages  to  be  derived  from  a  more  adequate  study  of  the 
history  of  Spanish  America. 

Our  colonial  history  in  the  past  has  too  rarely  emerged  from  a 
narrow  provincialism,  and  even  now  it  often  tends  to  sink  to  ancestor 
worship.  If  a  departure  was  made  from  the  narrow  track  of  colonial 
annals,  it  generally  consisted  in  conventional  comments  on  the 
Spanish  cruelties  and  thirst  for  gold  and  the  superior  wisdom  and 
natural  capacity  of  the  English  race  for  colonization,  with  little 
or  no  attempt  at  discriminating  comparison  between  the  two  types  of 
colonial  enterprise. 

More  broadly  conceived,  the  study  of  the  European  colonization 
of  America  becomes  the  investigation  of  one  of  the  great  instances 
of  the  transmission  of  culture  in  human  history,  that  process  by 
which  the  social,  intellectual,  and  religious  acquisitions  of  one  people 
are  transmitted  or  imposed  upon  another,  which  is  thereby  lifted  to 
a  higher  stage  of  civilization.  The  conquests  of  Alexander  spread 
Greek  culture  far  beyond  the  boundaries  of  Greek  colonization; 
through  the  expansion  of  Rome  the  science  of  Greece,  the  jurisprud- 
ence of  Rome,  and  the  Christian  religion  became  the  common 
possession  of  the  ancient  world;  through  the  Norman  conquest 
England  was  brought  into  intimate  political  and  social  relations 
with  the  Continent  and  shared  more  fully  the  heritage  of  Rome. 
At  the  time  of  the  Renaissance  Italy  was  the  teacher  of  Europe  in 
literature,  art,  politics,  and  manners;  and  the  vivifying  influences 
flowing  from  that  country  fertilized  the  intellectual  soil  of  Germany, 
France,  and  England.  During  the  reign  of  Louis  XIV,  France,  in 
turn,  became  the  arbiter  of  manners  and  set  the  fashioh  for  literary 
and  artistic  effort.    In  the  early  eighteenth  century  the  stream  set  in 


180  HISTORY  OF   AMERICA 

from  England,  when  the  results  of  the  Spanish  Succession  War  had 
raised  her  to  the  position  of  the  first  power  in  Europe,  and  in  France 
in  particular  keen  curiosity  was  aroused  in  English  thought  and 
literature. 

The  American  Revolution  in  a  measure  shifted  the  centre  of  interest 
across  the  Atlantic,  and  American  political  ideas  and  methods  be- 
came a  powerful  leaven  in  France,  where  the  French  Revolution  gave 
them  a  universal  hearing  and  sent  forth  transforming  influences 
in  every  direction.  Each  one  of  these  shifting  currents  of  cultural 
influences  constitutes  a  rich  field  of  study.  The  analysis  of  its  parts, 
the  processes  by  which  its  work  was  done,  the  relative  degree  of  per- 
manence of  the  results,  all  these  constitute  fascinating  problems  for 
the  historian. 

If  we  approach  American  history  from  this  point  of  view  and 
make  it  the  study  of  the  transmission  of  the  culture  of  Western 
Europe  to  a  new  and  larger  field  of  development,  we  find  ourselves 
engaged  in  the  investigation  of  a  most  momentous  movement  in  the 
history  of  civilization,  truly  comparable  to  Alexander's  Asiatic 
empire  and  to  Rome's  African  and  Western  European  dominion. 
For  the  youthful  student  or  for  the  maturer  investigator  such  a 
comparative  study  of  the  Spanish,  French,  and  English  colonization  is 
rich  in  instruction.  It  will  not  only  broaden  his  conceptions  of  Ameri- 
can history  but  throw  a  new  light  on  the  history  of  Europe. 

There  are  few  fields  better  adapted  for  the  comparative  study  of 
the  spirit,  the  capacities,  and  the  character  of  these  great  peoples; 
nor  is  it  easy  to  find  one  where  the  economic  and  the  human  factors 
which  shaped  the  course  of  history  can  be  more  easily  segregated 
and  estimated.  Such  a  study  calls  first  for  a  survey  of  the  economic 
and  social  conditions  of  the  mother  country,  for  a  clear  grasp  of 
what  it  aimed  to  do,  and  of  the  physical  conditions  in  the  New 
World  which  worked  for  or  against  those  objects.  Yet  a  word  of 
caution  is  to  be  uttered  against  beginning  with  the  comparison  of 
New  Spain  and  Massachusetts,  for  almost  all  the  conditions  deter- 
mining the  character  of  these  communities  were  very  different.  Far 
more  suitahle  is  a  comparison  of  New  Spain  and  British  India,  for 
there  you  have  two  imperial  systems  imposed  upon  a  mass  of  native 
populations,  and  a  certain  broad  similarity  at  the  start.  If  it  is 
once  realized  that  British  India  and  not  Massachusetts  is  to  be 
compared  with  the  vice-royalties  of  New  Spain  and  of  Peru,  the 
emptiness  of  many  a  generalization  about  the  Spanish  and  English 
colonial  systems  is  apparent.  The  proper  physical  starting-point 
for  such  a  comparative  study  is  the  West  Indies.  In  the  West  Indies 
the  Spanish,  French,  and  English  met  on  equal  grounds,  and  the 
comparison  between  Cuba,  Hayti,  and  Jamaica  is  sound  and  in- 
structive. It  is  a  fruitful  inquiry  to  examine  how  these  three  peoples 


r 


RELATIONS  OF  AMERICAN  HISTORY  181 

managed  the  problems  of  a  plantation  colony  with  slave  labor;  nor 
is  it  less  interesting  to  compare  the  results  of  their  respective  policies 
since  the  abolition  of  slavery.  A  comparison  between  the  respective 
slave  codes  of  the  Spanish,  French,  and  the  English  colonies  is  some- 
what disconcerting  to  the  student  of  English  blood,  whose  knowledge 
of  Spanish  policy  has  been  colored  by  some  echo  of  Las  Casas' 
denunciations  of  the  early  conquistadores.  If  the  comparison  is  ex- 
tended to  the  criminal  legislation  in  force  in  the  colonies  of  these 
nations,  one  is  again  compelled  to  acknowledge  that  whatever  merits 
are  accorded  to  the  English  system  superior  humaneness  is  not  one 
of  them. 

After  such  an  introductory  study  we  may  appropriately  compare 
some  phases  of  Mexico  with  New  England,  always  keeping  in  mind, 
however,  in  the  case  of  Mexico,  the  influence  of  a  climate  like  the 
Rocky  Mountain  Plateau,  of  the  rich  stores  of  the  precious  metals,  and 
of  the  preservation  of  the  native  stocks. 

If  after  this  comparison  we  apply  the  same  process  to  the  history 
of  La  Plata  region  and  of  the  Mississippi  Valley,  certain  things  stand 
out  clearly  which  may  be  briefly  noted.  The  stupendous  economic 
development  of  these  vast  agricultural  regions  has  been  possible 
only  since  the  application  of  steam  to  industry  and  transportation. 
This  great  factor  which  has  revolutionized  the  relative  advantages 
of  Argentina  and  Peru,  and  enabled  Buenos  Ayres  to  become  the 
greatest  city  in  the  Spanish  American  world,  has  in  the  same  way 
enormously  increased  the  disparities  between  Mexico  and  the  United 
States.  A  comparison  of  these  two  communities  before  the  entrance 
of  this  factor  shows  that  in  more  than  one  respect  New  Spain  was 
in  advance  of  New  England.  This  is  true  in  regard  to  thp  prosecution 
of  higher  scientific  studies,  the  establishment  of  the  institutions  of 
charity,  libraries,  art,  and  architecture:  in  a  word,  in  those  features 
characteristic  of  the  life  of  a  wealthy  community. 

I  have  referred  to  the  Spanish  treatment  of  inferior  or  dependent 
races,  and  intimated  that  it  compares  favorably  as  a  whole  with  the 
contemporary  treatment  accorded  to  such  dependents  by  the  Eng- 
lish colonists.  The  belief,  of  course,  is  widely  prevalent  that  the 
story  of  Spanish  Indian  policy  was  merely  the  tragedy  of  devastation; 
but  that  view  is  profoundly  mistaken.  Its  origin  is  found  in  the 
curious  fact  that  national  jealousies  of  Spain  three  centuries  and 
more  ago  gave  an  enormous  circulation  in  the  various  languages  of 
Western  Europe  to  the  impassioned  appeals  of  Las  Casas  for  the 
protection  of  the  natives.  To  depict  the  Indian  policy  of  Spain  from 
the  pages  of  Las  Casas  would  be  like  drawing  the  history  of  South- 
ern slavery  from  the  columns  of  the  Liberator  and  multiplying  the 
instances  by  ten.  The  Indians  owed  much  to  Las  Casas  and  history 
owes  him  much,  but  he  apparently  felt  that  boundless  exaggeration 


182  HISTORY  OF   AMERICA 

in  a  righteous  cause  could  do  no  harm  and  might  do  good.  If  we  take 
the  confidential  report  of  Juan  and  Ulloa  to  the  King  of  Spain  in 
the  eighteenth  century  as  to  conditions  in  Peru/  we  find  that,  dark 
as  they  were,  they  were  almost  bright  as  compared  with  what  appear 
to  be  to-day  the  conditions  in  the  Congo  State. 

It  is  no  doubt  hazardous  in  an  historical  paper  to  touch  upon  so 
delicate  a  subject  as  the  race  question,  but  I  will  venture  a  few  words 
upon  its  broader  aspects. 

The  race  question  involves  not  only  the  relations  between  the 
whites  and  the  colored  in  our  Southern  states;  it  confronts  us  in 
the  Philippines  and  Porto  Rico.  In  other  aspects  it  is  and  will  be 
one  of  the  perennial  and  absorbing  problems  in  the  development  of 
Africa.  For  the  consideration,  not  to  say  settlement,  of  a  question 
so  complicated  and  so  involved  in  prejudice  and  passion  and  wrong, 
no  light  or  teaching  that  history  affords  should  be  neglected.  These 
questions  were  first  faced  by  the  Spaniards  of  all  modern  Europeans, 
and  in  the  four  hundred  years'  history  of  Spanish  America  there  is 
a  wealth  of  human  experience  in  the  contact  of  races  that  may  be 
drawn  upon  for  warning  or  instruction  or  possibly  for  reassurance. 

If  history  has  lessons  for  the  present,  the  history  of  Spanish  Amer- 
ica assuredly  deserves  an  immensely  more  careful  study  than  it  has 
yet  received.  If  the  study  of  that  history  is  prosecuted  with  scien- 
tific detachment,  penetrating  discrimination,  and  generous  liberality 
of  mind,  —  that  freedom  from  the  distorting  influences  of  race  pride 
and  religious  prepossession,  —  it  will  enrich  the  history  of  Spain  and 
broaden  the  study  of  our  own  colonial  history,  and  contribute  to  the 
intelligent  appreciation  of  the  race  problems  of  the  twentieth  centurj-. 

In  this  brj£f  essay  upon  a  subject  so  comprehensive  as  the  rela- 
tion of  American  history  to  other  fields  of  historical  study,  I  have 
found  it  hardly  practicable  to  do  more  than  to  remind  the  student 
of  European  civilization  that  his  territory  extends  across  the  Atlantic, 
and  is  not  bounded  by  it,  and  that  the  forces  and  tendencies,  the 
people  and  the  institutions  with  whose  development  he  is  occupied, 
have  a  life  over-seas,  distinct  but  not  detached  from  the  life  in  the 
Old  World,  and  one  with  whose  powerful  reactions  on  the  parent 
civilization  he  must  reckon;  and,  lastly,  I  have  ventured  to  advocate 
a  broader  treatment  of  the  history  of  European  colonization  in  the 
New  World,  which  will  accord  to  the  work  of  Spain  a  more  appreciative 
recognition,  and  which  may  not  be  without  interest  and  value  to  us. 
now  that  we  have  undertaken  to  shape  the  history  of  millions  of 
people  whose  earlier  acquisitions  of  European  culture  came  through 
Spain,  or  to  those  European  nations  which  have  the  problem  of 
Africa  on  their  hands. 

'  Noticias  Secretas  de  America,  etc.  Sacadas  a  luz  por  Don  David  BaiTy.  Lon- 
don, 1826. 


PROBLEMS  IN  AMERICAN  HISTORY 

BY   FREDERICK   JACKSON   TURNER 

[Frederick  Jackson  Turner,  Professor  of  American  History,  University  of  Wiscon- 
sin, Madison,  Wisconsin,  b.  November  14,  1861,  Portage,  Wisconsin.  A.B. 
University  of  Wisconsin,  1884;  AM.  ibid.  1888;  Ph.D.  Johns  Hopkins  Univer- 
sity, 1890.   Instructor,  University  of  Wisconsin,  1885-88;  Assistant  Professor, 

ibid.  1889-91;  Professor  of  History,  ibid.  1891 ;  Professor  of  American 

History,  ibid.  1892 ;    Lecturer  in  History  in  Harvard  University,  1904. 

Member  Council  of  American  Historical  Association,  Massachusetts  Historical 
Society,  Colonial  Society  of  Massachusetts,  Curator  State  Historical  Society  of 
Wisconsin.  Author  of  various  monographs  and  documentary  collections  in 
Reports  of  American  Historical  Association,  and  American  Historical  Review.] 

A  catalogue  of  specific  problems  which  await  solution  in  American 
history  is,  I  am  sure,  not  expected.  Such  a  list  would  be  altogether 
too  large  for  the  limits  assigned  to  this  paper,  even  if  it  were  a 
desirable  undertaking  in  itself.  I  prefer  to  discuss  some  larger  lines 
of  reconstruction  of  United  States  history,  some  points  of  view  from 
which  it  may  be  approached,  in  the  belief  that  such  an  estimate 
may  be  of  service  in  presenting  tests  for  determining  the  relative 
importance  of  our  problems  and  in  bringing  into  view  some  neg- 
lected fields  of  study  and  neglected  methods  of  investigation. 

In  many  ways  the  problems  of  American  history  differ  from  those 
of  Old  World  history.  The  documents  are,  for  the  most  part,  recent, 
and  exist  in  comparative  abundance,  although  scattered  and  in- 
completely collected.  Our  problems  with  respect  to  material  are 
therefore  not  primarily  those  of  the  technique  of  verification  and 
criticism  of  scanty  documents,  but  are  chiefly  those  of  garnering 
the  scattered  material,  printed  and  written;  making  bibliographies 
and  indexes;  and,  in  general,  rendering  available  for  historical 
workers  the  sources  for  understanding  our  development.  The  Ameri- 
can Historical  Association,  through  its  various  committees,  the 
Library  of  Congress,  the  Carnegie  Institution,  and  other  agencies 
have  already  inaugurated  important  work  in  finding  and  listing 
archives  and  manuscripts.  But  very  much  remains  to  be  done  in 
these  respects,  for  material  that  would  be  of  inestimable  service 
to  the  historian  is  daily  disappearing,  and  the  existing  material  is 
inadequately  known  and  used.  The  lack  of  systematic  bibhographies 
of  the  documents  in  the  various  states  of  the  Union,  in  the  national 
archives  and  libraries,  and  in  the  foreign  countries  with  which  we 
have  come  in  contact,  or  from  which  we  have  derived  our  origins,  is. 
much  to  be  regretted.  Comparatively  moderate  expenditures  by 
historical  societies  and  by  the  state  and  national  governments  to- 
perfect  their  documentary  collections  and  to  make  them  known^ 


184  HISTORY  OF  AMERICA 

would  revolutionize  our  study  and  obviate  the  necessity  of  rewriting 
a  great  mass  of  our  history.  We  are  now  using  incomplete  material 
when  rich  stores  of  documents  casting  new  light  upon  our  problems 
remain.  The  American  historian  is,  I  think,  continually  impressed 
with  the  unwisdom  of  reliance  upon  a  partial  collection  of  documents, 
although  they  may  be  examined  with  the  minute  and  critical  methods 
of  the  trained  historical  critic,  when  an  abundance  of  material  exists. 
In  illustration  I  may  suggest  that  a  large  part  of  our  early  diplo- 
matic history  has  been  written  from  American  printed  material 
without  the  use  of  the  archives  of  England,  France,  and  Spain,  and 
that  speculation  has  too  frequently  taken  the  place  of  discussion 
of  evidence  actually  in  existence.  This  problem  of  materials  is 
presented  also  in  the  neglect  of  our  growing  and  practical  people  — 
more  interested  in  making  than  in  preserving  history  —  to  accumu- 
late the  records  of  its  developments.  In  how  few  libraries  are  to  be 
found  complete  collections  of  the  early  session  laws  of  the  various 
states,  and  particularly  those  of  the  group  west  of  the  Alleghanies! 
Indeed,  how  few  of  these  states  have  themselves  collected  complete 
sets  of  their  own  public  documents  and  newspapers.  A  whole  era  is 
thus  becoming  increasingly  difficult  to  understand  and  to  record. 
These  problems  of  the  preservation  and  organization  of  material  are 
among  the  most  pressing.  Traveling  missionaries  of  history  who 
should  explore  the  South  and  West,  for  example,  listing  and  copying 
or  bringing  into  secure  and  accessible  libraries  the  materials  in  the 
form  of  newspapers,  pamphlets,  journals,  correspondence,  business 
records,  etc.,  would  do  a  work  that  posterity  would  recognize  with 
gratitude. 

Passing  from  this  preliminary  problem  of  the  accumulation  and 
listing  of  material,  I  desire  next  to  raise  the  question,  What  is  the 
special  significance  of  American  history?  This  should  afford  a  test 
for  determining  the  grand  strategy  of  an  attack  upon  its  fundamental 
problems. 

The  especial  contributions  which  students  of  American  history  are 
capable  of  making  to  the  study  of  history  in  general  are  determined, 
it  seems  to  me,  by  the  peculiar  importance  of  American  history  for 
understanding  the  processes  of  social  development.  Here  we  have 
a  vast  continent,  originally  a  wilderness,  at  first  very  sparsely  occu- 
pied by  primitive  peoples,  opened  by  discovery  to  settlement  by 
Europeans,  who  carry  their  institutions  and  ideas  from  the  Old 
World  to  America.  They  are  compelled  to  adjust  old  institutions 
to  their  new  environment;  to  create  new  institutions  to  meet  the 
new  conditions;  to  evolve  new  ideas  of  life  and  new  ethnic  and 
social  types  by  contact  under  these  conditions;  to  rise  steadily 
through  successive  stages  of  economic,  political,  and  social  develop- 
ment to   a  highly  organized   civilization;    to  become  themselves 


PROBLEMS   IN    AMERICAN   HISTORY  185 

colonists  of  new  wilderness  areas  beyond  the  first  spheres  of  settle- 
ment; to  deal  again  with  the  primitive  peoples  at  their  borders;  in 
short,  continuously  to  develop,  almost  under  the  actual  observation 
of  the  present  day,  those  social  and  industrial  stages  which,  in  the 
Old  World,  lie  remote  from  the  historian  and  can  only  be  faintly 
understood  by  scanty  records.  ^  The  factor  of  time  in  American  history 
is  insignificant  when  compared  with  the  factors  of  space  and  social 
evolution.  Loria  has  insisted  that  colonial  society  exhibits  in  social 
development  material  comparable  in  the  study  of  society  to  that 
brought  into  view  for  the  geologist's  inspection  by  the  upheavals 
of  the  earth's  crust.  These  have  elevated  deep-lying  strata  of  geolog- 
ical formations,  so  that  it  is  possible  from  them  to  read  the  earlier 
pages  of  the  history  of  the  earth.  But  the  idea  is  incompletely  stated 
in  this  form,  for  the  whole  period  of  American  history  exhibits 
recurrences  of  the  colonial  society,  modified  by  different  frontier 
physiographic  conditions,  and  by  the  character  and  intensity  of 
industrial  life  of  the  society  that  throws  off  these  new  colonies.  The 
process  is  still  going  on  in  those  northern  areas  of  prairies  and 
plains  in  Canada,  where  we  may  pass,  by  railroad,  from  the  youthful 
but  highly  organized  manufacturing  cities  of  the  more  densely 
peopled  and  still  developing  regions,  through  regions  of  increasingly 
scanty  and  primitive  agricultural  occupation,  out  to  the  waste  of 
foothills,  where  the  trail  of  the  buffalo  seams  the  hillside,  reaching 
to  the  far  horizon  line  and  showing  the  road  which  civilization  will 
rapidly  follow.  It  may  frankly  be  conceded  that  the  differences 
between  the  processes  of  social  construction  in  Europe  and  in 
America  are  at  least  as  important  as  the  resemblances  and  analogies. 
But  after  all  limitations  are  made,  it  remains  true  that  the  history 
of  America  offers  a  rich  new  field  for  the  scientific  study  of  social 
development,  taken  in  the  largest  sense  of  the  phrase. 

The  point  which  I  wish  to  make,  therefore,  is  that  it  is  important 
to  conceive  of  American  history,  first  of  all,  as  peculiarly  rich  in 
problems  arising  from  the  study  of  the  evolution  of  society.  Henry 
Adams  has  stated  the  matter  in  a  somewhat  less  inclusive  form  in 
these  words:  "The  scientific  interest  of  American  history  centred 
in  national  character,  and  in  the  workings  of  a  society  destined  to 
become  vast,  in  which  individuals  were  important  chiefly  as  types. 
Although  this  kind  of  interest  was  different  from  that  of  European 
history,  it  was  at  least  as  important  to  the  world.  Should  history 
ever  become  a  true  science,  it  must  expect  to  establish  its  laws,  not 
from  the  complicated  story  of  rival  European  nationalities,  but 
from  the  methodical  evolution  of  a  great  democracy.  North  America 

1  Discussed  by  the  writer  under  the  title,  "  Significance  of  the  Frontier  in  Amer- 
ican Histor)',"  in  the  Fifth  Y ear-Book  of  the  National  Herbart  Society,  and  in  Re- 
port of  American  Historical  Association,  1893,  p.  197. 


186  HISTORY   OF   AMERICA 

was  the  most  favorable  field  on  the  globe  for  the  spread  of  a  society 
so  large,  uniform,  and  isolated  as  to  answer  the  purposes  of  science." 

It  is  safe  to  say  that  the  problems  most  important  for  considera- 
tion by  historians  of  America  are  not  those  of  the  narrative  of 
events  or  of  the  personality  of  leaders,  but,  rather,  those  which 
arise  when  American  history  is  viewed  as  the  record  of  the  develop- 
ment of  society  in  a  wilderness  environment;  of  the  transformation 
of  this  society  as  it  arose  to  higher  cultural  stages;  of  the  spreading 
of  it  into  new  wildernesses  by  extension  across  the  continent.  In 
other  words,  we  have  to  deal  with  the  formation  and  expansion 
of  the  American  people,  the  composition  of  the  population,  their 
institutions,  their  economic  life,  and  their  fundamental  assumptions 
—  what  we  may  call  the  American  spirit  —  and  the  relation  of  these 
to  the  different  periods  and  conditions  of  American  history. 

If,  then,  the  all-embracing  problem  in  our  history  is  the  descrip- 
tion and  explanation  of  the  progress  of  this  society,  at  once  develop- 
ing and  expanding,  we  shall  find  that  within  it  are  contained  a 
multitude  of  subordinate  problems.  First,  let  us  consider  the  phe- 
nomenon of  our  expanding  society  in  reference  to  the  fact  that  the 
vast  spaces  over  which  this  forming  people  have  spread  are  them- 
selves a  complex  of  physiographic  sections.  American  sectionalism 
has  been  very  inadequately  dealt  with  by  our  historians.  Impressed 
by  the  artificial  political  boundary  lines  of  states,  they  have  almost 
entirely  given  their  attention  either  to  national  or  to  state  history, 
or  to  the  broad  division  of  North  and  South,  overlooking  the  fact  that 
there  are  several  natural,  economic,  and  social  sections  that  are 
fundamental  in  American  historical  development.  As  population 
extended  itself,  it  flowed  into  various  physiographic  provinces, 
some  of  them  comparable  in  size  and  resources,  not  only  to  the 
greater  nations  of  Europe,  but  even  to  some  of  the  great  empires 
that  have  from  time  to  time  been  formed  by  combinations  of  these 
nations.  The  American  physical  map  may  be  regarded  as  a  map  of 
potential  nations  and  empires,  each  to  be  conquered  and  colon- 
ized, each  to  rise  through  stages  of  development,  each  to  achieve  a 
certain  social  and  industrial  unity,  each  to  possess  certain  funda- 
mental assumptions,  certain  psychological  traits,  and  each  to  interact 
with  the  others,  and  in  combination  to  form  that  United  States, 
the  explanation  of  the  development  of  which  is  the  task  of  the  his- 
torian. 

The  physiographers  have  recognized  the  existence  of  natural 
provinces  and  have  mapped  them  under  such  names  as  the  New 
England  Plateaus,  the  Piedmont  Plains,  the  Lake  and  Prairie 
Plains,  the  Gulf  Plains,  the  Great  Plains,  etc.  The  Census  Bureau  has 
likewise  attempted  sectional  divisions,  on  the  basis  of  its  maps  of 
population,  industrial  conditions,  resources,  etc.    Railroad  managers 


PROBLEMS   IN  AMERICAN  HISTORY  187 

realize  and  act  upon  the  theory  of  such  sections  and  study  them  with 
a  thoroughness,  an  insight,  and  a  power  of  constructive  imagination 
that  may  well  be  imitated  by  the  economists  and  historians.  Socio- 
logists, also,  hke  Professor  Giddings,  have  attempted  to  state  a 
psychological  classification  of  American  sections.  But  as  yet  the  his- 
torian has  hardly  begun  the  serious  study  of  sectionalism,  in  the  con- 
tinent as  a  whole.  And  yet  this  is  a  fundamental  fact  in  American 
history.  We  need  studies  designed  to  show  what  have  been  and  are 
the  natural,  social,  and  economic  divisions  in  the  United  States.  We 
need  to  trace  the  colonization  of  these  separate  regions,  the  location, 
contributions,  and  influence  of  the  various  stocks  that  combined  to 
produce  their  population.  We  should  map  the  streams  of  migration 
of  the  settlers  from  the  various  sections  into  new  provinces,  and  the 
areas  of  their  settlement.  Thus  the  composition  of  the  sections  will 
be  revealed.  We  should  study  their  economic  evolution,  their  peculiar 
psychological  traits,  the  leaders  which  they  produced,  their  party 
history,  their  relations  wdth  other  sections.  Such  a  treatment  would 
illuminate  the  history  of  the  formation  and  character  of  the  Ameri- 
can people. 

Perhaps  I  may  be  permitted  to  illustrate  this  idea  somewhat. 
If  the  historian  were  to  select  the  New  England  plateaus  as  the 
province  for  his  study,  he  would  find  that,  after  all  the  work  that 
has  been  done  in  New  England  history,  there  remain  some  of  the 
most  fundamental  problems  for  solution.  Who  is  to  trace  for  us  the 
spread  of  population  into  the  interior  and  north  of  New  England 
during  the  second  half  of  the  seventeenth  and  the  eighteenth  cen- 
turj'?  Such  a  study,  unfolding  the  economic  and  social  aspects  of  the 
movement,  the  agrarian  and  religious  causes  at  work,  the  modifica- 
tion of  the  people,  the  effects  upon  the  social  structure  of  New  Eng- 
land, the  party  divisions  and  the  institutions  resultant,  would  give 
us  important  data  for  understanding  that  portion  of  New  England 
which  lies  beyond  the  seaboard,  and  it  would  cast  light  upon  the 
subsequent  movement  and  contributions  of  this  interior  folk  to  New 
York  and  the  Middle  West.  A  detailed  economic  history  of  New 
England  since  the  Revolution  is  sadly  needed.  It  would  bring  out 
the  relations  of  New  England's  physiography  to  her  development: 
the  pressure  of  population  upon  the  hill  regions;  the  transfer  of 
economic  interest  from  the  sea  to  the  water  powers,  from  commerce 
to  manufactures;  the  changing  political  attitude  of  the  various 
portions  of  the  section  in  response  to  the  changing  industrial  inter- 
ests; the  economic,  social,  and  religious  conditions  that  led  to  the 
exodus  from  New  England  and  the  formation  of  a  greater  New  Eng- 
land in  the  West.  At  present  we  do  not  know  enough  about  this 
expansion  of  the  New  England  people  —  a  movement  certainly 
comparable  in  its  importance,  in  its  influence  upon  American  history, 


188  HISTORY  OF   AMERICA 

to  the  much  studied  earlier  colonization  of  the  Puritans  in  New 
England  proper.  These  later  colonists  carried  New  England  men, 
institutions,  and  ideas  into  regions  which  far  excelled  the  area  from 
which  they  came  in  size,  in  productiveness,  and  ultimately  in  political 
influence.  The  area  of  the  northern  counties  of  Illinois  entered 
by  New  England  settlers  constitutes  in  itself  a  level  region  of  solid 
fertility  equal  to  the  combined  area  of  Massachusetts,  Rhode  Island, 
and  Connecticut,  with  all  their  unproductive  hills.  The  influence  of 
New  England  upon  the  political  history  of  the  Middle  West,  and 
through  it  upon  the  nation,  has  been  profound.  Its  effect  in  forming 
the  social  and  moral  ideas  of  the  central  region  of  the  republic  can 
hardly  be  overstated.  But  we  really  know  but  little  about  this 
colonization  compared  with  the  detailed  information  which  historical 
investigators  have  given  us  about  the  location  of  the  homes  of  the 
Pilgrims.  We  cannot  even  state  with  approximate  correctness  the 
periods  when  the  various  Western  states  received  their  largest 
numbers  of  New  England  settlers.  Nor  has  the  replacement  of  this 
New  England  stock  in  the  parent  region  by  immigration  been  ade- 
quately studied.  We  shall  not  understand  the  New  England  of  to-day 
until  we  have  a  fuller  account  of  the  industrial,  social,  political,  and 
religious  effect  of  this  transformation  of  New  England  by  replace- 
ment of  its  labor  population  and  by  the  revolution  in  its  industrial 
life,  with  the  accompaniments  of  social  stratification,  loss  of  homo- 
geneity, and  changed  ideals  in  respect  to  democracy. 

Not  to  dwell  too  long  upon  this  region,  let  us  turn  for  a  moment 
to  indicate  a  few  of  the  problems  that  arise  when  the  South  is  con- 
sidered from  this  same  point  of  view.  The  term  South  as  a  sectional 
designation  is  misleading.  Through  a  long  period  of  our  history  the 
"Solid  South"  did  not  exist.  We  must  bear  in  mind  not  only  the 
differences  between  the  various  states  of  the  Southern  seaboard,  but 
also  the  more  fundamental  differences  between  the  up-country  (the 
Piedmont  region)  and  the  Atlantic  Plains.  The  interior  of  the  South 
needs  treatment  as  a  unit.  State  historians  of  Virginia  and  the 
Carolinas,  for  example,  recognize  the  fundamental  contrasts  in 
physiography,  colonization,  stock,  and  economic  and  social  charac- 
teristics, between  the  lowlands  and  the  uplands  in  their  respective 
states.  But  as  yet  no  one  has  attacked  the  problem  of  the  settle- 
ment, development,  and  influence  of  the  Piedmont  Plains  as  a 
whole.  This  peninsula,  as  we  may  conceive  it,  thrust  down  through 
the  Great  Valley  from  Pennsylvania,  between  the  mountains  and  the 
seaboard,  the  land  that  received  the  German,  Scotch-Irish,  and 
poorer  white  English  settlers,  developed,  in  the  second  half  of  the 
eighteenth  century,  an  independent  social,  economic,  and  political 
character.  It  was  a  region  of  free  labor  upon  small  farms.  It  was 
devoted  to  cereals  rather  than  to  the  great  staple  crops  of  the  sea- 


PROBLEMS   IN   AMERICAN  HISTORY  189 

board.  In  its  social  structure  it  was  more  like  Pennsylvania  than  the 
Southern  commonwealths  with  which  it  was  politically  connected. 
It  struggled  for  just  representation  in  the  legislatures,  and  for  ade- 
quate local  self-government.  The  domestic  history  of  the  South 
is  for  many  years  the  history  of  a  contest  between  these  eastern 
and  western  sections.  When  the  cotton  belt,  with  slavery  as  its 
labor  element,  spread  across  this  Piedmont  area,  the  region  became 
assimilated  to  the  seaboard.  The  small  farmers,  raising  crops  by  the 
labor  of  their  own  families,  were  compelled  either  to  adjust  them- 
selves to  the  plantation  economy,  or  to  migrate.  The  process  of  this 
transformation  and  its  effects  constitute  a  problem  not  yet  worked 
out  in  details.  A  migration  of  small  farmers  from  the  Piedmont 
across  the  Ohio  and  into  the  Gulf  region  followed.  Many  had  moral 
and  religious  objections  to  slavery,  many  were  unable  to  change 
their  agricultural  habits  to  meet  the  new  conditions,  many  lacked 
the  necessary  capital  for  a  slave  plantation  and  preferred  to  accept 
the  price  of  their  lands  offered  by  the  planters,  and  to  migrate  to  the 
public  lands  where  they  could  continue  their  old  industrial  and 
social  type  of  society.  In  this  expansion  of  the  South  into  the  Ohio 
Valley  and  the  Gulf  Plains  we  have  a  colonization  demanding  study. 
Indeed,  the  whole  industrial  and  social  history  of  the  South  has  been 
obscured  by  the  emphasis  placed  on  the  political  aspects  of  the 
slavery  struggle.  We  need  a  history  of  the  plantation  in  its  various 
areas  and  at  different  periods.  Such  a  study  would  give  us  the  key 
to  Southern  history.  The  rise  and  fall  of  cotton  values,  the  price 
of  slaves,  the  agrarian  history  of  the  South,  the  relation  of  its  polit- 
ical demands  to  these  conditions,  the  distribution  of  rival  political 
parties  in  the  region,  —  these  and  similar  topics  would  come  into 
prominence  if  the  historian  should  select  for  treatment  the  Southern 
provinces  of  the  Atlantic  Plains,  the  Piedmont  and  the  Gulf  Plains, 
their  interaction,  and  the  shifting  centre  of  political  power  between 
them. 

It  is  unnecessary  to  point  out  that  similar  advantages  would  come 
from  attempts  to  explain  the  evolution  of  the  social  structure  of  the 
Lake  and  Prairie  Plains,  the  Great  Plains,  the  Pacific  Coast,  etc. 
We  should  study  the  contact  of  whites  and  Indians;  the  history  of 
the  occupation  of  the  pubUc  lands  in  these  provinces;  the  move- 
ment into  them  of  settlers  from  other  sections;  the  industrial  trans- 
formations of  the  provinces  from  primitive  farming  up  to  the 
complex  economic  conditions  of  to-day;  the  development  and  in- 
fluence of  railroad  systems;  the  rise  of  cities;  the  rise  of  peculiar 
views  of  life  in  the  respective  sections.  Such  topics  carry  with  them 
a  rich  freightage  of  problems,  essential  to  explain  our  own  history 
and  capable  of  casting  important  light  upon  the  evolution  of  society 
as  a  whole. 


190  HISTORY   OF   AMERICA 

The  problems  of  inter-provincial  relations  need  study  also.  The 
whole  history  of  American  politics  needs  to  be  interpreted  in  the 
terms  of  a  contest  between  these  economic  and  social  sections. 
Periods  when  it  seemed  that  there  was  no  great  issue  dividing  political 
parties  will  be  found  to  abound  in  evidences  —  in  the  legislation  of 
Congress,  for  example  —  that  intense  political  struggles  actually 
went  on  between  the  separate  sections,  combining  and  rearranging 
their  forces  as  occasion  showed  the  need.  It  is  only  when  we  get 
below  the  surface  of  national  politics  to  consider  the  sectional  party 
groupings  that  we  are  able  to  discover  the  lines  on  which  new  party 
issues  are  forming  and  the  significance  of  the  utterances  of  the 
leaders  of  these  rival  sections.  Again  and  again,  we  shall  find  the 
party  candidates  anxious  to  conciliate  the  conflicting  interests  of 
the  different  sections  and  attempting  to  "straddle"  upon  vital 
problems,  which  nevertheless  continue  to  force  themselves  to  the 
front.  The  outcome  is  determined  by  the  combination  of  these  rival 
sections  for  and  against  the  proposition.  Studied  from  this  point 
of  view,  the  careers  of  J.  Q.  Adams,  Clay,  Calhoun,  and  Jackson,  as 
spokesmen  of  their  areas  (to  take  examples),  acquire  new  meaning  and 
significance.  Even  more  obvious,  perhaps,  is  the  slavery  struggle. 
When  it  is  stated  that,  in  one  important  aspect,  that  struggle  was  a 
conflict  between  the  Lake  and  Prairie  plainsmen,  on  the  one  side,  and 
the  Gulf  plainsmen,  on  the  other,  for  the  control  of  the  Mississippi 
Valley,  the  Civil  War  acquires  new  meaning.  Lincoln,  Grant,  and 
Sherman  were  the  outcome  of  the  influences  of  the  Middle  West; 
Davis,  Yancey,  and  A.  S.  Johnston  came  from  the  Cotton  Kingdom 
of  the  Gulf  Plains.  We  are  forced  to  reexamine  the  political  strife 
with  reference  to  the  forces  which  conditioned  the  leaders  of  these 
rival  sections.  We  are  obliged  to  study  such  problems  as  the  develop- 
ment of  the  industrial  resources  of  the  regions,  both  before  and 
during  the  war. 

The  economic  rivalries  and  industrial  inter-relations  of  the  different 
sections  of  the  country  also  are  continuous  factors  in  our  history, 
and  are  more  familiar  to  business  men  and  to  railroad  managers 
than  they  are,  as  a  rule,  to  the  historian. 

Passing,  with  these  suggestions,  from  the  problems  that  arise  on 
breaking  up  our  subject  into  provinces,  let  us  next  note  that,  for 
the  explanation  of  the  United  States,  we  need  historical  investigation 
of  a  large  number  of  topics  as  yet  very  imperfectly  studied.  It  will 
be  possible  only  to  suggest  some  of  the  more  important.  First,  let  us 
inquire  how  far  American  historians  have  seriously  attempted  the 
study  of  the  formation  and  development  of  our  national  character. 
The  transition  of  the  people  of  the  United  States  from  the  conflicting 
ideals  and  traits  of  the  colonial  period  to  the  present  ideals  of  the 
nation,  constitutes  an  important  study  in  the  evolution  of  the  cul- 


PROBLEMS  IN   AMERICAN   HISTORY  191 

ture  of  the  people,  and,  as  yet,  has  been  only  imperfectly  examined. 
We  need  to  investigate  the  forces  by  which  the  composite  nationahty 
'  of  the  United  States  has  been  created,  the  process  by  which  these 
different  sections  have  been  welded  into  such  a  degree  of  likeness 
that  the  United  States  now  constitutes  a  measurably  homogeneous 
people  in  certain  important  respects.  We  need  to  study  the  rise  and 
growth  of  the  intellectual  character  of  the  people,  as  shown  in  their 
literature  and  art,  in  connection  with  the  social  and  economic  con- 
ditions of  the  various  periods  of  our  history.  In  short,  we  need  a 
natural  history  of  the  American  spirit. 

To  take  another  topic,  we  need  a  political  history  of  the  United 
States  which  shall  penetrate  beneath  the  surface  of  the  proceedings 
of  national  conventions  to  the  study  of  the  evolution  of  the  organs  of 
party  action  and  of  those  underlying  social  and  economic  influences 
in  the  states  and  sections  which  explain  party  action.  This  matter  has 
been  indicated  in  connection  with  the  importance  of  studying  our 
history  from  the  point  of  view  of  rival  sections,  but  it  is  of  sufficient 
importance  to  warrant  separate  consideration.  We  need  to  give  a 
social  and  economic  interpretation  to  the  history  of  political  parties 
in  this  country.  In  illustration,  I  may  say  that  maps  giving  the 
location  of  Democratic  counties  and  Republican  counties  in  the 
states  of  the  Old  Northwest,  through  several  decades  of  our  history, 
show  an  astonishing  coherence  and  persistence  in  area  of  these  rival 
parties.  Transition  areas  show  close  votes  as  a  rule.  This  indicates 
that  party  grouping  depends  upon  such  social  factors  as  nativity, 
persistence  of  traditions,  economic  conditions,  etc.,  even  more  than 
upon  leadership  and  reasoning.  When  such  a  study  of  our  party 
development  shall  have  been  made,  we  shall  be  in  a  better  position 
to  comprehend  the  laws  that  determine  party  action  in  general,  and 
an  important  contribution  will  have  been  made  to  the  understanding 
of  the  development  of  society. 

Another  topic  very  inadequately  treated  is  the  agrarian  history  of 
the  United  States,  To  take  one  phase  of  it,  we  lack  an  extended 
history  of  the  public  domain  in  its  economic  and  political  influence. 
Fragments  of  these  topics  have  been  dealt  with  by  able  scholars, 
but  we  have  no  complete  treatise  on  the  subject.  If,  as  I  believe, 
the  free  lands  of  the  United  States  have  been  the  most  important 
single  factor  in  explaining  our  development,  there  should  be  increased 
attention  to  the  land  system.  The  history  of  land  tenure  and  land 
values,  the  effects  of  the  cheaper  lands  of  the  newly  occupied  regions 
upon  the  older  settled  country,  the  relation  of  cheap  lands  to  wages 
and  to  society  in  general,  need  to  be  considered. 

The  subject  of  immigration  has  been  hardly  more  than  touched 
by  the  American  historian.  In  spite  of  the  fact  that  so  vast  a  body 
of  our  population  has   been   drawn  since  the  later  colonial  days 


192  HISTORY  OF   AMERICA 

from  non-English  stocks,  the  history  of  the  European  conditions 
that  brought  these  people  to  us,  the  process  of  transformation  of 
the  immigrants  into  American  citizens,  the  effects  which  they  pro- 
duced upon  American  society  and  industrial  life,  are  all  too  little 
known.  We  shall  not  understand  the  American  people  without 
giving  much  more  attention  to  this  important  subject. 

It  is  impossible  to  do  more  than  name  some  of  the  long  list  of 
topics  as  yet  inadequately  treated.  There  is  needed  a  study  of  our 
relations  to  the  American  Indian.  No  systematic  study  of  this  pro- 
blem as  a  whole  has  been  made,  and  yet  it  is  an  exceedingly  important 
one  in  the  history  of  American  development,  and  one  from  which  rich 
results  may  be  expected.  It  is  hardly  necessary  to  say  that  such 
a  study  of  the  negro  is  needed.  The  history  of  the  law  in  America 
remains  to  be  written  by  the  cooperative  study  of  men  trained  to 
historical  investigation  as  well  as  in  the  law.  The  history  of  religion 
and  of  the  various  churches  in  the  United  States  has  not  yet  been 
^vritten  as  a  phase  of  the  general  social  development  of  the  American 
people.  It  should  be  considered  in  its  relation  to  American  history 
as  a  whole,  and  it  will  be  found  that  some  of  the  most  fundamental 
factors  in  our  history  require  such  a  study  for  their  explanation. 
Recently  some  important  beginnings  have  been  made  at  a  history  of 
labor  in  America.  This  has  been  one  of  the  most  important  neglected 
fields  in  our  history,  and  it  is  to  be  hoped  that  thorough  investigation 
will  be  given  to  the  rise  of  the  laboring  classes,  the  organization  of 
labor  and  its  influence  in  American  society.  Somewhat  connected 
with  the  same  topic  is  the  study  of  the  development  of  democracy 
in  the  United  States.  As  yet  we  know  but  imperfectly  the  stages  in  the 
development  of  the  political  power  of  the  common  people.  A  com- 
plete history  of  the  franchise  in  this  country  and  of  the  organization 
of  the  masses  to  impress  their  will  upon  legislation  is  a  desideratum. 
A  comparative  study  of  the  process  of  settlement  of  the  United 
States  would  be  another  important  contribution.  If,  with  our  own 
methods  of  the  occupation  of  the  frontier,  we  should  compare  those 
of  other  countries  which  have  dealt  with  similar  problems,  —  such 
as  Russia,  Germany,  and  the  English  colonies  in  Canada,  Australia, 
and  Africa,  —  we  should  undoubtedly  find  most  fruitful  results. 

But  I  pass  from  the  enumeration  of  these  tempting  problems  of 
topical  history,  —  an  enumeration  which  is  merely  begun,  not  at  all 
completed,  —  to  suggest  next  that  certain  periods  and  areas  of  our 
history  have  been  inadequately  treated.  The  whole  colonial  history 
of  the  eighteenth  century  needs  study.  The  Revolution  and  French 
and  Indian  wars  of  that  period  have  withdrawn  attention  from  the 
contemporaneous  transformations  in  our  economic,  political,  and 
social  institutions.  In  some  respects,  this  was  the  period  of  forma- 
tion of  the  peculiarly  American  institutions  in  contrast  to  the  English 


PROBLEMS   IN   AMERICAN  HISTORY  193 

institutions  that  were  imported.  Then  it  was  that  the  American 
people,  psychologically  considered,  originated.  But  little  attention 
has  been  given  to  the  period,  aside  from  its  military  aspect. 

The  generation  that  followed  the  Civil  War  has  yet  to  read  its 
history  also.  The  time  would  seem  to  have  come  when  the  histo- 
rians should  bestow  some  of  their  attention  upon  the  wonderful 
development  of  the  nation  since  the  reconstruction  period.  How 
profoundly  our  whole  life  has  changed  in  that  period,  it  is  unnecessary 
to  say.  The  vast  organizations  of  labor  and  capital,  the  tremendous 
increase  in  immigration  whereby  the  American  stock  has  been 
modified,  the  extraordinarj'-  growth  of  transportation  facilities, 
and  society  with  them,  the  concentration  of  industries,  the  spread 
of  our  commerce  abroad,  and  the  rise  of  the  United  States  into  the 
position  of  a  world  power,  the  new  political  issues  —  are  but  a  few 
of  the  subjects  as  yet  dealt  with  by  the  historian  in  only  a  cursory 
way. 

From  the  lack  of  attention  to  our  recent  history,  it  follows  that 
the  area  between  the  Mississippi  and  the  Rocky  Mountains  —  an 
empire  in  itself  —  is  almost  virgin  soil  for  the  historian.  Nor  is  it 
a  region  without  interest.  It  is  doubtful  whether  anywhere  more 
profitable  work  could  be  done  than  in  the  interpretation  of  the 
formation  of  society  in  this  vast  domain  of  the  prairies. 

Perhaps  the  first  problem  of  all  —  one  that  I  shall  content  myself 
with  stating  merely  —  is  the  problem  of  how  to  apportion  the  field 
of  American  history  itself  among  the  social  sciences.  The  conception 
that  history  is  past  poUtics  is  now  but  little  regarded,  and  the  con- 
ception of  history  as  the  study  designed  to  enable  a  people  to  under- 
stand itself,  by  understanding  its  origins  and  development  in  all 
the  main  departments  of  human  life,  is  becoming  the  dominant  one. 
But  the  history  of  the  American  people  forces  upon  our  attention 
the  fact  that  no  satisfactory  understanding  of  the  evolution  of  this 
people  is  possible  without  calling  into  cooperation  many  sciences 
and  methods  hitherto  but  little  used  by  the  American  historian. 
Data  drawn  from  studies  of  literature  and  art,  politics,  economics, 
sociology,  psychology,  biology,  and  physiography,  all  must  be  used. 
The  method  of  the  statistician  as  well  as  that  of  the  critic  of  evidence 
is  absolutely  essential.  There  has  been  too  little  cooperation  of 
these  sciences,  and  the  result  is  that  great  fields  have  been  neglected. 
There  are  too  many  overlapping  grounds  left  uncultivated  owing 
to  this  independence  of  the  sciences,  too  many  problems  that  have 
been  studied  with  inadequate  apparatus,  and  without  due  regard  to 
their  complexity.  I  propose  no  solution  of  the  difficulty;  but  it  is 
important  fairly  to  face  it,  and  to  realize  that,  without  the  combined 
effort  of  allied  sciences,  we  shall  reach  no  such  results  in  the  study  of 
social  development  as  have  been  achieved  in  the  physical  world  by 


194  HISTORY  OF  AMERICA 

the  attack  of  problems  of  natural  science  by  the  combined  forces  of 
physics,  chemistry,  and  mathematics. 

In  short,  American  history  should  be  studied  as  capable  of  making 
most  illuminating  contributions  to  the  history  of  social  development. 
All  of  the  apparatus  needed  to  solve  the  problems  arising  from  this 
conception  of  the  nature  of  American  history  should  be  used. 


SUPPLEMENTARY    PAPERS 

Professor  Marshall  S.  Snow,  of  Washington  University,  St.  Louis,  presented 
a  short  paper  on  "Commerce  and  Discovery,"  in  wliich  he  emphasized  the  "  com- 
mercial idea"  as  being  the  real  force  actuating  the  discoveries  of  the  fifteenth 
and  sixteenth  centuries,  and  criticised  the  undue  importance  which  has  often 
heretofore  been  given  motives  which  were  secondary  and  not  primary.  From 
the  time  of  Columbus,  Vespucius,  and  other  navigators  seeking  new  routes  to 
India,  to  the  later  English  and  European  explorations,  the  desire  for  fame,  the 
love  of  adventure,  and  the  wish  to  extend  dominion,  religious  and  temporal, 
were  much  less  powerful  than  the  overwhelming  desire  to  open  gold-mines  and 
rival  successfully  competing  nations  in  the  pursuit  of  commercial  supremacv. 

Professor  Evarts  P.  Greene,  of  the  University  of  Illinois,  presented  a  paper  on 
"  Some  Aspects  of  Colonial  Politics  at  the  Beginning  of  the  Eighteenth  Century." 
The  speaker  contrasted  the  government  of  the  colonies  during  the  early  period, 
ranging  from  the  theocratic  republic  of  Massachusetts  to  the  semi-feudal  palatin- 
ates of  Maryland  and  Carolina,  with  the  marked  change  which  had  taken  place 
at  the  beginning  of  the  eighteenth  century.  At  this  time  the  great  majority  of 
American  people  lived  in  royal  provinces,  having  a  governor  appointed  by  the 
Crown  and  a  representative  assembly  elected  by  the  people,  —  the  governor 
standing  for  prerogative,  for  imperial  control,  for  British  interests;  the  assembly 
for  constitutional  privileges,  for  autonomy,  and  for  local  interests.  The  develop- 
ment of  various  policies  adopted  by  the  Crown  with  regard  to  each  of  the  colonies 
was  concisely  set  forth,  and  the  conclusion  reached  that  throughout  the  entire 
first  half  of  the  century  the  influence  of  imperial  government  was  being  neutral- 
ized and  at  the  same  time  there  was  being  asserted  vigorously  and  successfully 
the  self-governing  principle. 

Dr.  Charles  E.  Fiske,  of  Centralia,  Illinois,  presented  a  paper  on  "The 
Township  Government  in  Indiana."  It  had  for  its  fundamental  point  the  asser- 
tion that  the  real  basis  of  the  liberties  of  the  Anglo-Saxon  race  was  the  right  of 
the  people  to  regulate  their  local  public  affairs.  It  is  the  failure  to  recognize 
this  fact  that  has  kept  the  world  wondering  at  the  success  of  the  Republic  of 
the  United  States.  As  an  illustration  of  this  the  speaker  gave  an  account  of  the 
organization  of  Indiana  from  the  Northwest  Territory  and  the  introduction  of  a 
new  atmosphere  in  reference  to  local  government.  The  fact  that  the  township 
system  of  Indiana  at  present  rests  entirely  upon  legislative  enactment,  which 
may  at  any  time  be  rescinded,  needs  serious  thought  if  we  admit  that  the  surest 
safeguard  of  liberty  is  the  power  of  the  people  to  control  their  own  local  affairs. 
The  danger  from  imperialism  is  not  from  above  but  from  below.  We  are  not  Ln 
danger  from  the  general  government.  The  danger  is  when  the  people  allow  the 
affairs  of  their  local  government  to  get  into  the  hands  of  the  general  government 
through  sheer  lack  of  attention. 

Professor  Frederic  L.  Paxson,  of  the  University  of  Colorado,  presented  a 
paper  on  "  The  Territory  of  Jefferson:  A  Spontaneous  Commonwealth,"  in  which 
was  set  forth  in  an  interesting  manner  the  efforts  of  the  mining  districts  of  Pike's 
Peak  and  the  adjacent  country  to  form  a  suitable  government  which  should 
preserve  law  and  order,  and  protect  property.  Its  short  life  of  a  year  and  a  half 
was  only  an  episode  in  commonwealth  building  in  the  West,  but  it  illustrated 
the  constant  quality  of  frontier  citizenship  and  the  spontaneous  instinct  for  self- 
government  that  gives  to  American  life  so  much  of  its  distinctive  character. 


SECTION  F 
HISTORY  OF  ECONOMIC   INSTITUTIONS 


SECTION  F 
HISTORY  OF  ECONOMIC   INSTITUTIONS 


{.HaU  2,  September  23,  3  p.  m.) 

Chairman:  Professor  Frank  A.  Fetter,  Cornell  University. 
Speakers:  I*rofe8sor  J.  E.  Conrad,  University  of  Halle. 

Professor  Simon  N.  Patten,  University  of  Pennsylvania. 
Secretart:  Dr.  J.  Pease  Norton,  Yale  University. 


ECONOMIC    HISTORY    IN    RELATION    TO   KINDRED 

SCIENCES 

BY  JOHANNES  EVAST  CONRAD 

{Translated  from  the  German) 

[Johannes  Evast  Conrad,  Professor  of  Political  Science,  University  of  Halle,  and 
Privy  Councilor,  b.  February  28,  1839,  Borkau,  West  Prussia.  Ph.D.  Jena, 
1864;  LL.D.  Princeton.  Member  of  Commission  to  revise  the  Code  of  Civil 
Law;  Member  of  the  Institute  of  France;  Academy  of  Sciences,  St.  Petersburg; 
American  Academy  of  Social  Science,  Philadelphia;  International  Institute  of 
Statistics.  Author  of  many  books  and  essays  on  Political  Economy.  Editor  of 
Annals  of  Political  Economy  and  Statistics,  Jena,  1870;  Collections  of  Essays 
on  Political  Science;  co-editor  of  Mamtal  of  Political  Economy,  Jena,  1899, 1902.] 

The  enormous  extension  of  the  field  of  knowledge,  together  with 
its  more  thorough  cultivation,  has  in  modern  times  led  almost  all 
sciences  to  apply  the  principle  of  division  of  labor.  Such  is  the  trend 
in  the  recent  development  of  the  science  of  history.  '  Beginning 
naturally  with  the  description  of  the  political  life  of  a  country  in 
some  period,  history  then  turned  its  attention  to  the  phases  of  the 
development  of  national  life  which  underwent  the  greatest  modi- 
fications and  because  of  their  striking  features  attracted  general 
interest,  that  is,  political  events,  struggles  at  home  and  abroad, 
changes  in  the  governing  forces  of  the  state,  etc.  It  was  only  gradually 
that  interests  enlarged  and  began  to  embrace  other  phenomena,  as 
manifested  in  science  and  art  or  in  economic  activity. 

There  have  been  hitherto  only  three  periods  in  which  these  sides 
of  life  have  assumed  such  general  importance  as  to  demand  equally 
with  political  events  an  historical  presentation.  This  was  the  case  in 
classical  antiquity  when  philosophy  and  art  were  most  flourishing, 
in  the  period  of  the  Reformation  when  questions  of  religion  stirred 


200  HISTORY    OF    ECONOMIC    INSTITUTIONS 

the  world  and  simultaneously  discoveries  and  inventions  began  to 
revolutionize  economic  life,  and  above  all  in  the  last  century  when 
economic  and  social  problems  have  swayed  men's  minds  far  more 
than  transactions  of  state,  the  shifting  of  political  power,  or  the 
opinions  and  deeds  of  princes. 

The  training  of  all  intellectual  powers  with  the  impulse  given  by 
the  art  of  printing  necessarily  aroused  an  increased  interest  in  the 
development  of  mankind  as  a  whole  and  brought  out  more  clearly 
the  final  aim  of  all  historical  investigation,  the  knowledge  of  man  in 
all  his  aspects  and  of  his  ways  and  means  to  assist  the  progress  of 
civilization,  in  order  by  such  study  better  to  understand  the  present 
and  the  problems  of  the  future.  There  thus  arose,  in  contradistinction 
to  the  history  of  individual  peoples,  the  conception  of  a  universal 
history  such  as  that  attempted  by  Gatterer  *  and  Schlozer  ^  in  Gottin- 
gen  during  the  eighteenth  century,  and  thus  far  brought  to  its  most 
finished  form  by  Leopold  Ranke.  But  while  unity  of  aim  was  being 
realized,  the  necessity  became  apparent  for  a  division  of  the  science 
in  the  form  of  the  history  of  intellectual  and  of  economic  culture, 
each  of  these  extensive  fields  affording  opportunity  for  the  life- 
work  of  students  of  very  differing  abilities  and  interests.  Along 
with  the  history  of  art  and  literature  came  that  growth  of  economic 
history  with  which  we  have  here  to  deal. 

As  no  science  can  advance  without  taking  historical  retrospects,  it 
was  natural  that  from  the  very  beginning  the  representatives  of  the 
two  great  studies,  history  and  political  economy,  which  stand  in 
the  closest  relation  to  economic  life,  could  not  well  avoid  making 
economo-historical  investigations.  It  is,  however,  only  very  recently 
that  these  have  become  of  fundamental  importance.  We  find  the 
mercantilists,  as,  for  example,  Antonio  Serra,  already  studying  the 
movement  of  prices  and  the  monetary  history  of  their  coimtry,  in 
order  to  explain  the  events  of  their  own  time.  And  Adam  Smith, 
who  is  so  often  reproached  for  his  purely  abstract  method,  turned  to 
good  account  in  his  work  the  history  of  coinage  as  well  as  of  trade  in 
England.  Robert  Malthus  supports  his  theory  of  population  upon 
a  study,  reaching  as  far  back  as  possible,  of  the  increase  of  popula- 
tion in  different  countries.  Saint-Simon  founds  his  socialistic  doc- 
trines upon  a  description  of  the  class  differences  emerging  in  the 
course  of  centuries.  Of  historians,  Schlozer  must  again  be  named 
among  the  first  who  found  an  economic  basis  indispensable  for  uni- 
versal history.  Among  later  writers,  Macaulay  seems  to  me  particu- 
larly worthy  of  notice,  and  his  account  of  the  economic  condition 
of  England  at  the  end  of  the  seventeenth  century,  of  the  state  of 

*  Johann  Christoph  Gatterer,  Handbuch  der  Universalgeschichte,  etc.  GQttin- 
gen,  1761. 

*  August  Ludwig  Schlozer,  Weligeschichte  nach  ihren  Hauptteilen.  Gottingen, 
1792. 


ECONOMIC    HISTORY    AND    KINDRED    SCIENCES    201 

agriculture,  of  factory  workers,  of  roads  (vol.  i,  ch.  iii),  and  also  of 
the  development  of  credit  which  led  to  the  foundation  of  the  Bank 
of  England  (vol.  ly,  ch.  xx),  must  be  regarded  as  a  model  study  in 
economic  history.  In  this  connection  should  also  be  mentioned 
the  attempts  of  Justus  Moser  to  complete  his  historical  presentation 
by  a  thorough  description  of  the  economic  conditions  of  his  small 
native  region.  But  it  was  principally  the  further  growth  of  political 
economy  which  of  necessity  led  to  the  development  of  economic  his- 
tory. This,  of  course,  was  especially  the  case  where  the  teachings  of 
Adam  Smith  had  never  been  freely  accepted,  but  where  problems 
far-reaching  in  their  influence  on  economic  life  were  always  left  in 
the  hands  of  the  state,  as  in  Germany.  Here,  as  early  as  the  thirties 
of  the  last  century,  political  economy  received  that  threefold  division 
which  by  emphasizing  economic  policy  and  finance  gave  the  prac- 
tical side  of  the  science  greater  importance  than  in  any  other  coun- 
try. The  historical  investigation  of  the  old  guild  system  by  Wilda,^ 
of  the  financial  history  of  the  Middle  Ages  by  Hiillmann,^  etc. ;  in 
France,  de  Tocqueville's  epoch-making  UAncien  Regime,  with  its 
new  light  on  the  French  Revolution,  are  all  results  of  the  same 
general  tendency.  And  here  I  would  name  especially  my  revered 
teacher,  Georg  Hanssen,  who  in  his  study  of  peasant  holdings,  the 
abolition  of  serfdom,  etc.,  produced  works,  which,  in  explanation 
of  present  conditions,  are  models  of  their  kind.  The  scholar  found 
himself  compelled,  if  he  would  judge  modern  conditions  aright,  to 
examine  how  and  from  what  causes  they  came  to  be  what  they  are. 
But  not  alone  for  history  and  the  practical  problems  of  political 
economy  but  for  theory  as  well  did  the  necessity  of  economo-his- 
torical  study  become  evident.  I  need  only  refer  here  to  well-known 
facts.  Friedrich  List '  sought  in  history  his  chief  weapon  of  attack 
against  the  one-sidedness  of  Adam  Smith.  His  statement  of  the 
various  economic  stages,  erroneous  though  it  was,  made  a  long- 
enduring  impression,  as  did  also  Hildebrand's  *  comparison  of  the 
stages  of  the  barter,  the  money,  and  the  credit  system.  Hilde- 
brand's attack  against  socialism  rests  likewise  on  historical  evidence, 
and  in  the  first  article  of  his  Jahrhiicher  (1863),  on  the  task  of  eco- 
nomic science,  he  particularly  emphasized  the  necessity  of  economic 
history.  Wilhelm  Roscher  ^  in  his  Political  Economy  enunciates 
scarcely  a  single  proposition  without  bringing  historical  data  for 
its  support,  and  Knies  *  constantly  pointed  out  the  need  of  applying 
historical  methods  for  the  further  development  of  economic  science. 

1  Wilh.  Ed.  Wilda,  Das  Gildewesen  im  MittelaJter.   Halle,  1831. 

'  K.  D.  Hiillmann,  Deutsche  Finamgeschichte  des  MittelaJters.    Berlin,  1805. 

'  Das  nationals  System  der  politischen  Oekonomie.    1840,  7th  ed.,  1883. 

*  Jahrhiicher  fur  Nationalokonomie.  Band  ii,  1  January,  1864. 

'  Die  Grundlagen  der  Nationalokonomie.    Stuttgart,  4th  ed.,  1861. 

'  Die  politische  Oekonomie  von  Standpunkte  der  geschichtlichen  Methode.   Braun- 
schweig, 1853  and  1883. 


202  HISTORY    OF    ECONOMIC    INSTITUTIONS 

More  recently  in  Germany,  two  men  have  devoted  themselves  to  the 
causes  of  economic  history  and  have  succeeded  in  gaining  recognition 
of  its  very  great  importance.  I  refer  to  Gustav  Schmoller  and  Karl 
Lamprecht.  Both  of  them  have  been  characterized  by  the  one- 
sidedness  which  is  essential  for  pioneer  work,  but  each  has  sought 
to  connect  his  science  with  economic  history  and  to  make  it  the 
foundation  of  a  new  edifice,  Schmoller  for  political  economy,  Lamp- 
recht for  history.  Little  as  I  can  give  my  full  adherence  to  either 
of  these  investigators,  I  am  nevertheless  bound  to  acknowledge 
their  great  service  in  this  direction  and  to  express  the  gratitude  we 
owe  them  for  their  work  in  economic  history.  But  before  we  examine 
their  opinions  more  closel}''  we  must  recall  to  mind  the  problem  and 
the  inner  nature  of  our  science. 

Economic  history  must  from  its  nature  not  only  investigate  and 
describe  the  actual  processes  of  economic  life  in  different  periods, 
but  must  especially  follow  their  development  with  a  view  to  explain- 
ing causal  relations. 

Just  as  history  itself  started  out  with  the  special  investigation 
and  description  of  a  country  at  some  definite  period  of  the  past,  so  is 
it  also  the  task  of  economic  history  to  give  historical  cross-sections 
either  of  the  economic  life  of  a  country  or  a  region  or  of  a  branch 
of  production.  Examples  have  been  given  us  by  Schmoller  in  his 
Strassburg  Weaver's  Guild,  by  Schonberg  in  his  Financial  History  of 
Bdle  in  the  Fourteenth  and  Fifteenth  Centuries  (1879),  and  by  Biicher 
in  his  Population  of  Frankfort  on  the  Main  during  the  Fourteenth  and 
Fifteenth  Centuries  (1886).  Here  belong  also  such  works  as  Troel- 
Lund's  *  Danish  and  Norwegian  History  of  the  Sixteenth  Century,  and 
Klemm's  *  History  of  Civilization,  the  former  containing  a  detailed 
investigation  of  housing  conditions,  etc.,  the  latter  a  description 
of  utensils  and  ornaments  of  all  kinds  from  the  first  beginnings  of 
civilization.  This  minute  investigation  has  often  been  contempt- 
uously regarded  as  useless  trifling,  and  undoubtedly  a  love  of  minutiae 
can  be  carried  too  far  and  thus  injure  the  scientific  character  of  a 
work.  It  is  certain,  however,  that  such  detailed  research  is  indis- 
pensable, and  we  should  rejoice  when  investigators  devote  them- 
selves to  so  tedious  and  ungrateful  a  task.  Often  the  inner  connec- 
tion of  various  cooperating  factors  can  be  discerned  only  within 
a  small  field,  and  only  by  penetrating  and  minute  investigation  is  it 
possible  to  discover  those  new  and  important  factors  which  a  merely 
general  survey  would  fail  to  reveal.  Just  as  the  microscopist  dis- 
covers injurious  bacilli  and  thus  the  explanation  of  many  diseases, 
so  a  similar  close  examination  shows  processes  in  economic  life 

*  Troel-Lund,  Danmark  og  Norges  Historic  i  Slutningen  af  det  16  Aarhun  drede 
10  vols.   Copenhagen,  1887. 

'  Klemm's  KuUurgeschichte,  1843-52. 


ECONOMIC  HISTORY  AND   KINDRED  SCIENCES    203 

which  would  never  otherwise  be  disclosed.  Especially  for  the  be- 
ginner are  such  special  historical  studies  an  unsurpassed  means  for 
obtaining  a  good  historical  training,  for  acquiring  exact  methods  and 
a  more  acute  perception  of  combinations,  etc.,  while,  and  this  is  a 
weighty  consideration,  they  permit  the  task  to  be  proportioned  to  the 
capacity.  Building  stones  may  thus  be  obtained,  which  of  course 
must  be  hewn  into  shape  and  in  large  numbers  if  an  edifice  is  to  be 
erected.  But  the  important  point  is  that  the  historical  method 
be  applied  to  determine  the  continuity  of  development,  and  in  his 
initial  investigations  the  student  must  confine  himself  to  those 
particular  branches  or  institutions  of  economic  hfe  which  may  be 
mastered  by  the  beginner.  With  reference  to  the  value  of  detailed 
investigation,  I  would  mention  Tooke  and  Newmarch's  ^  valuable 
History  of  Prices.  They  have  given  us  entirely  new  ideas,  not  only 
as  to  the  conditions  of  earlier  times  but  still  more  as  to  the  nature 
and  significance  of  single  economic  measures.  Thorold  Rogers's  ^ 
historical  studies  of  agriculture,  commerce,  industry,  and  prices 
in  England,  and  Levasseur's  '  on  the  laboring  classes  in  France,  also 
belong  here. 

It  was  only  by  a  comparison  of  guild  institutions  in  their  different 
stages  of  development  that  a  correct  understanding  was  obtained 
of  the  essential  nature  of  the  guild  system.  A  closer  study  of  the 
condition  of  roads  at  different  periods  affords  us  an  explanation 
of  the  pecuharities  of  trade,  of  different  branches  of  industry,  and  of 
domestic  life  at  different  epochs.  Truly  amazing  is  the  bee-like  indus- 
try with  which  hundreds  of  investigators  in  Germany  now  continually 
engage  in  such  detailed  studies,  concerning  which  Lamprecht,*  for 
instance,  during  the  eighties  gave  in  my  JahrbUcher  very  interesting 
reviews. 

The  chief  task,  however,  will  naturally  be  to  construct  a  well- 
balanced  whole  from  these  single  contributions,  not  merely  to  give 
a  survey  of  the  economic  activity  of  mankind  at  different  periods 
but  to  present  this  in  its  historical  development.  As  universal 
history  tends  to  develop  from  national  history,  the  history  of  civil- 
ization from  political  history,  there  must  in  like  manner  gradually 
emerge  an  all-embracing  economic  history  of  different  countries  and 
finally  the  economic  history  of  mankind;  thus  for  a  certain  country 

»  A  History  of  Prices,  etc.,  from  1793  to  1856.  6  vols.  London,  1838-57. 

^  J.  Thoroid  Rogers,  A  History  of  Agriculture  and  Prices  in.  England  from  1257- 
1793.  7  vols.  Oxford,  1866-1902. 

J.  Thorold  Rogers,  Six  Centuries  of  Work  and  Wages.   London.  1884. 

J.  Thorold  Rogers,  The  Industrial  and  Commercial  History  of  England.  London, 
1892. 

'  Emil  Levasseur,  Histoire  des  classes  ouvrieres  en  France  depuis  la  conqu^te  de 
Jules  Cesar  jusqu'h  la  Revolution  (1859  2  vols.) ,  and  depuis  1780  jusqu'^  nos  jours. 
Paris,  1867. 

*  Jahrb.  f.  Nationalokonomie,  1882,  1883,1884.  Die  wirtschaftlicUn  Studxen  in 
Deutschland. 


204  HISTORY  OF   ECONOMIC  INSTITUTIONS 

and  a  certain  period,  Jakob  Burckhardt  has  given  us  a  history  of 
civilization  of  the  Italian  Renaissance,  and  Gustav  Freitag,  in  a 
different  manner,  descriptions  of  life  in  the  period  of  the  German 
Reformation  and  in  the  following  centuries.  And  what  the  his- 
torian Schlosser  feebly  attempted  in  his  History  of  the  World  has 
become  in  Lamprecht's  ^  hands  the  foundation  of  universal  history, 
while  economic  history,  after  Biedermann's  beginning,  in  his  Economic 
History  of  Germany  in  the  Eighteenth  Century,  and  especially  in  von 
Inama-Sternegg's  ambitious  Economic  History,  is  clearly  aiming  to 
describe  the  development  of  economic  hfe  from  the  standpoint  of 
the  economist.  The  way  has  thus  been  shown,  and  it  will  undoubtedly 
be  pursued  with  growing  success  in  the  immediate  future. 

But  the  position  of  our  science  in  method  and  aims  will  best 
become  apparent  if  we  compare  it  with  the  mother  science,  with 
history  itself,  which  has  hitherto  regarded  the  political  side  of  human 
development  as  its  essential  and  indeed  sole  material.  It  confined 
itself  to  the  history  of  the  state  and  therefore  fulfilled  only  one  part 
of  the  task  which  is  set  for  it  to-day.  It  is  a  tendency  of  human 
nature  to  pass  from  one  extreme  to  another,  and  after  neglecting  to 
excess  the  economic  and  social  factors  there  is  now  a  widespread 
movement  to  take  them  as  the  starting-point  and  essential  founda- 
tion of  all  historical  science.  It  will  therefore  be  necessary  to  weigh 
carefully  in  order  to  find  the  true  mean.  But  no  one  any  longer 
denies  that  for  a  proper  understanding  of  political  events  a  know- 
ledge of  social  and  economic  conditions  is  also  necessary. 

A  sure  basis  for  decision  will,  it  seems  to  me,  be  found  at  once 
by  recognizing  unreservedly  that  each  advance  in  civilization  has 
been  possible  only  in  and  through  a  well-ordered  state,  that  the 
formation  of  the  state  has  been  the  most  important  and  significant 
expression  of  the  grade  of  civilization  at  all  periods,  just  as  on  the 
other  hand  the  state  has  exercised  the  most  far-reaching  influence 
upon  social  and  economic  life.  It  was,  therefore,  only  natural  that 
the  organization  of  the  state  and  political  activity  should  have 
been  made  the  chief  subject  of  historical  study,  particularly  as 
these  most  attracted  attention  and  were  most  easily  described. 
Difficulties  arose  when  the  next  step  was  undertaken,  and  the  attempt 
was  made  to  explain  the  motives  of  political  action  by  investigating 
natural  conditions,  by  analyzing  the  psychology  of  leading  per- 
sonalities, and  by  studying  the  character  of  the  population  upon 
and  through  which  these  leaders  had  acted.  For  not  with  every 
people  could  Caesar,  Frederick  the  Great,  or  Napoleon  have  achieved 
the  same  results;  furthermore,  the  same  people,  the  same  race,  has 
been  at  different  stages  of  its  progress  capable  of  very  different 
degrees  of  accomplishment;  every  period  has  its  own  conception 
'  Zur  jungsten  deiUschen  Vergangenheit,  vols,  i  and  ii.  Freiburg,  1903. 


ECONOMIC  HISTORY  AND   KINDRED  SCIENCES    205 

of  law  and  custom,  and  the  nation  has  therefore  been  animated  in 
turn  by  different  ideas  which  have  influenced  its  action.  The  history 
of  civiUzation  has  here  to  be  consulted.  Geography,  too,  must  play 
its  part,  since  the  natural  conditions  of  the  earth's  surface  form  the 
basis  for  the  development  of  nations  as  of  mankind.  Even  if  Liebig's 
saying  went  beyond  the  mark,  that  "ever  and  in  all  times  it  has 
been  the  soil  with  its  fruitfulness  which  has  conditioned  the  life 
of  nations,"  if  in  truth  civilized  man  in  his  progress  has  succeeded 
marvelously  in  emancipating  himself  from  nature  and  in  ruling 
her  more  and  more  instead  of  being  ruled  by  her,  it  nevertheless 
remains  true  that  here  definite  bounds  are  placed  to  the  power  of 
man,  that  until  very  recent  times  economic  development  has  been 
ruled  by  nature,  and  that  this  development  now  and  for  all  time  is 
in  the  highest  degree  influenced  by  the  conditioning  force  of  climate 
and  soil  upon  the  natural  capabilities  of  man.  Thus  the  superiority 
of  England,  its  economic  and  political  predominance  in  the  last 
century,  is  due  as  much  to  the  coal  and  iron  in  the  depths  of  its  soil 
and  to  the  waterways  which  lead  directly  to  the  mines  as  to  the 
physical  strength  and  mental  energy  of  the  people  which  has  flour- 
ished upon  its  soil  and  in  its  temperate  climate. 

Buckle  has  already  pointed  out  the  great  influence  exerted  by 
cUmate  upon  human  character  and  intellectual  capacity,  but  it  is 
far  more  important  to  observe  how  under  the  same  natural  condi- 
tions man  has  at  different  periods  developed  quite  different  capabil- 
ities, how  he  has  learned  to  make  use  of  nature  and  to  employ  her 
gifts  for  the  satisfaction  of  his  wants.  These  wants,  however,  have 
not  remained  the  same;  on  the  contrary,  they  have  continually 
changed,  and  not  entirely  without  justice  has  it  been  said  that  the 
history  of  human  wants  is  the  history  of  human  culture,  both 
economic  and  intellectual.  Cultivation  of  the  intellect  increases  the 
capacity  for  enjoyment  and  at  the  same  time  the  ability  to  devise 
new  means  of  satisfying  the  new  wants.  It  was  only  higher  civilization 
which  made  possible  the  centuries  of  invention,  that  of  the  Reforma- 
tion period,  and  again  the  last  century;  and  the  new  inventions  in 
turn,  which  had  made  possible  the  production  of  new  and  cheaper 
commodities,  aroused  the  taste  and  desire  for  them  in  widening 
sections  of  the  population,  so  that  despite  the  great  labor-saving 
expedients,  the  population,  even  with  the  most  strenuous  exertion, 
is  unable  to  produce  all  that  is  desired.  Thus  man  is  just  as  inventive 
in  a\^-akening  within  himself  new  needs  as  in  discovering  new  means 
of  satisfaction,  and  through  the  problems  thus  set  him,  which  to  his 
good  he  can  never  finally  solve,  he  is  led  to  an  ever  higher  develop- 
ment of  his  intellectual  powers.  Here  lies  the  chief  foundation  for 
the  progress  of  civilization.  The  life  of  the  state  appears  thus  only 
as  means,  not  as  end.   The  study  of  the  growth  of  economic  interests 


206  HISTORY  OF   ECONOMIC  INSTITUTIONS 

and  activities  assumes,  therefore,  up  to  a  certain  point  an  inde- 
pendent character,  though  never  without  regard  to  the  organization 
and  action  of  the  state,  which,  however,  falls  into  a  secondary  posi- 
tion. A  division  of  labor  must  be  perfected  in  which  economic 
history  takes  its  place  beside  political  history  as  a  helpful  companion. 
They  are  destined  to  walk  arm  in  arm  along  the  scientific  highway, 
not,  as  occasionally  seems  to  be  the  case,  to  tear  one  another's  hair 
in  rivalry.^ 

I  hope  now  to  have  sufficiently  indicated  the  high  value  of  eco- 
nomic history  for  universal  history.  It  appears  still  more  necessary 
to  define  the  limits  of  its  usefulness  and  therefore  of  its  importance. 
Since  the  epoch-making  appearance  of  Darwin,  his  doctrine  of 
evolution  has  been  passed  on  from  the  natural  to  the  mental  sciences, 
above  all  to  history,  and  in  the  theory  of  evolution  the  mechanical 
development  not  only  of  races  but  of  nations  and  states,  indeed  of 
all  civilization,  has  been  assumed  and  the  attempt  made  to  explain 
it.  According  to  this  theory,  natural  conditions,  influencing  the 
social  and  economic  life,  determine  also  the  mental  development  of 
mankind.  In  his  materialistic  conception  of  history,  Karl  Marx 
in  particular  undertakes  to  prove  that  ideas  of  right  and  law  itself 
are  the  natural  and  necessary  results  of  the  social  economy.  The 
influence  of  individuality  and  of  ideas  is  thereby  by  no  means 
absolutely  denied,  but  it  is  restricted  within  very  narrow  bounds. 
The  views  of  Auguste  Comte  in  philosophy,  of  Lamprecht  in  history, 
of  Wohltmann  and  others  in  natural  science,  tend  in  a  similar  direc- 
tion. In  the  development  of  civilization  they  are  incHned  to  assign 
too  little  significance  to  the  free  will  of  man,  to  the  single  individual, 
and  to  the  action  of  chance.  Everything,  they  hold,  is  subject  to 
the  laws  of  a  mechanical  development,  and  the  discovery  of  these 
laws  is  the  proper  task  of  history  and  of  political  economy. 

The  physical  theory  of  life  dominates  science  to-day  so  corapletelj' 
that  I  need  not  here  discuss  in  detail  what  concession  must  undoubt- 
edly be  made  to  it.  Every  human  action  is  the  necessarj''  consequence 
of  definite  motives;  furthermore  every  phenomenon  in  nature,  whether 
in  economic  or  social  life,  has  its  sufficient  reason.  There  can,  there- 
fore, be  neither  chance  nor  free  will  in  the  sense  of  unmotivated 
caprice  or  unrelated  action.  Rather  is  the  question  to  be  asked, 
whether  from  the  fact  that  everywhere  there  is  apparent  a  connection 
between  cause  and  effect  and  that  intellectual  activity  is  bound  up 
with  and  conditioned  by  material  environment,  the  necessary  con- 
sequence must  be  the  acceptance  of  the  materialistic  theory  of  life, 

*  K.  Lamprecht,  Zwei  Streitschriften,  den  Herrn  H.  Oncken,  H.  Delbriick,  M. 
Lem  zugeeignet.   Berlin,  1897. 

Dietrich  Schafer,  Das  eigentliche  Arbeitsgebiet  der  Geschichie.  Jena,  1888. 
Dietrich  Schafer,  Geschichte  und  KuUurgeschichte.  Jena,  1891. 
E.  Gothein,  Die  Aufgaben  der  KuUurgeschichte.   Leipzig,  1889. 


ECONOMIC  HISTORY  AND   KINDRED  SCIENCES    207 

or  whether  on  the  contrary  it  rests  upon  a  misunderstanding.^  I  am 
decidedly  of  the  latter  opinion.    We  see  developing  upon  the  same 
soil  completely  different  stages  of  civilization,   though  doubtless 
in  the  last  analysis  definite  bounds  are  set  to  human  activity  by 
natural  environment,  as  for  instance,  to  cite  an  extreme  case,  in  the 
polar  regions  and  in  the  tropics.    But  within  these  bounds  lies  so 
infinitely  wide  a  field  that  in  most  cases  it  is  negligible  in  our  in- 
vestigation. Economic  history  proves  to  us  man's  great  independence 
of  nature.     His  peculiar  capacity  for  progress  is  independent,  not 
altogether  of  external  influences,  but  of  those  accessible  to  human 
knowledge,  which  alone,  therefore,  demand  our  consideration.     If 
in  the  extreme  sense  of  the  word  there  is  no  chance,  still  from  the 
standpoint   of  human   judgment   chance   does   exist  in  historical 
events.   The  death  of  a  ruler  at  a  critical  moment,  as  for  example  of 
Gustavus  Adolphus  in  the  battle  of  Liitzen,  has  of  course  a  natural 
explanation  in  the  encounter  of  a  good  marksman  with  the  king  on 
the  battlefield,  but  from  the  historical  standpoint  it  nevertheless 
remains  an  accident  of  the  deepest  significance  for  the  further  history 
not  only  of  the  Thirty  Years'  War  but  of  Germany.   So  also  the  fact 
that  Frederick  the  Great  remained  unscathed  in  every  battle  and 
reached  a  great  age,  although  it  had  its  satisfactory  natural  reason, 
was  for  the  historian  accidental,  since  causes  thus  conditioned  are 
withdrawn  from  human  observation  and  do  not  stand  in  any  inner 
connection  with  the  general  course  of  events.    At  the  same  time  it 
has  nevertheless  been  already  admitted,  or  at  least  indicated,  that 
certain  prominent  individuals  can  have  and  continually  do  have 
a  definite  influence  upon  the  further  development  of  civilization  as  a 
whole,  even  though  they  are  bound  in  their  activity  to  the  soil  where 
they  have  grown,  are  the  product  of  the  milieu  out  of  which  they 
have  proceeded,  and  their  influence  is  determined  by  the  state  of 
civilization  and  the  racial  characteristics  of  the  nation  upon  which 
they  have  operated.    That  just  three  such  men  found  themselves 
together  as  our  Emperor  William,  Bismarck,  and  Moltke,  was  for 
Germany  an  accident  which  we  have  to  thank  for  the  existence  in  its 
present  form  of  a  united  German  Empire,  and  no  one  can  say  when 
and  how  the  same  end  could  otherwise  have  been  attained.   Because 
of  Bismarck's  conviction  that  his  purpose  could  be  effected  only  by 
an  equal,  universal  suffrage,  the  social-democratic  party  has  obtained 
the  political  importance  which  it  possesses  among  us  to-day  and  the 
Centre  exercises  a  decisive  influence  upon  our  legislation.    That  only 
the  powerful  personality  of  a  Luther  called  the  Reformation  into 
being,  guided  it  in  the  course  it  took,  and  made  it  actually  effective, 
is  now  generally  recognized.     The  mere  enumeration  of  names  is 
sufficient  to  recall  the  influence  on  all  economic  Ufe  exercised  by 
»  Ed.  Meyer,  Zur  Thearie  und  Methodik  der  Oeschichte.  Halle,  1902. 


208  HISTORY   OF   ECONOMIC  INSTITUTIONS 

such  a  genius  as  Watt,  and  in  more  recent  times  by  Gauss  and  Weber, 
Werner  Siemens,  and  Edison.  And  it  is  equally  unnecessary  to 
prove  the  proposition  that  their  influence  upon  mankind  would 
have  been  reduced  to  nothing  had  they  been  bom,  instead  of  in 
a  modern  civilized  country,  in  the  interior  of  Africa  or  in  Turkey,  or 
several  centuries  earlier. 

It  is  therefore  not  always  safe  to  infer  from  the  study  of  earlier 
conditions  and  events  what  effect  the  same  cause  would  exercise 
in  our  own  time.  The  conformity  of  events  to  law,  which  in  and  for 
itself  cannot  be  contradicted,  is  not  binding  for  us  where  we  cannot 
trace  it.  It  is,  indeed,  of  the  utmost  importance  to  make  clear 
that  in  political,  social,  and  economic  life  such  conformity  to  law 
can  be  observed  only  to  an  extremely  limited  extent,  but  that  chance 
in  particular  events  and  the  influence  of  the  individual  play  every- 
where the  dominant  role  in  development. 

But  when  we  survey  the  limited  range  of  human  knowledge,  we 
shall  not  regard  it  as  the  task  of  historical  and  economic  science  every- 
where to  search  for  laws.  We  must  satisfy  ourselves  with  tracing 
regularities  of  sequence  and  with  discovering,  and  as  far  as  possible 
isolating  from  the  infinite  mass  of  cooperating  factors,  those  which 
are  of  the  first  importance. 

My  chief  object  is,  however,  to  explain  clearly  the  attitude  of 
economic  history  toward  political  economy.  But  first  its  relation 
to  statistics  must  be  at  least  briefly  indicated. 

The  old  saying  of  Schlozer  in  Gottingen,  that  "history  is  con- 
tinuous statistics,  statistics  is  stationary  history,"  is  to-day  no 
longer  applicable.  Yet  strange  to  say,  it  has  recently  been  emphat- 
ically restated  by  Karl  Menger.  Although  I  grant  at  the  outset  that 
statistics  is  now  well  established  as  an  independent  branch  of  study, 
with  a  large  field  of  investigation  in  the  statistics  of  population  and  in 
moral  statistics,  a  field  exclusively  its  own  where  it  applies  its  own 
method,  it  remains,  nevertheless,  only  a  method  which,  precisely 
like  the  historical  method,  has  been  and  still  is  used  in  almost  all 
sciences  and  especially  in  economic  history.  It  must,  therefore, 
be  most  emphatically  denied  that  the  present  alone  is  its  field  of 
investigation.  It  is  a  systematic,  numerical  observation  of  masses, 
which  seeks  to  elicit  group  characteristics,  and  this  observation  of 
masses  can  naturally  be  applied  to  the  past  as  well  as  to  the  present. 
Indeed,  as  is  well  known,  this  is  often  done  in  order  to  discover  the 
process  of  development  by  a  comparison  of  different  periods.  When 
history  proceeds  in  this  manner  it  utilizes  both  methods,  the  his- 
torical and  the  statistical.  The  one  method  does  not  exclude  the  other; 
on  the  contrary  the  two  are  combined.  Only  statistics,  because  of 
its  recent  origin,  possesses  very  few  older  data,  and  is  therefore  in  the 
main  confined  to  the  present  which  constantly  offers  an  enormous 


ECONOMIC  HISTORY  AND   KINDRED  SCIENCES    209 

material  for  its  use  and  demands  from  it  the  solution  of  ever  new 
problems. 

Economic  history  has  been  supplemented  by  ethnology  and 
ethnography.  For  historical  investigation  finds  its  limit  long  before 
the  beginning  of  civilization,  where  tradition  fails,  while  it  is  of  the 
greatest  importance  to  study  the  nature  of  man  before  he  has  been 
influenced  by  civilization.  The  savage  is  an  extremely  important 
object  of  observation  for  the  political  economist,  though  unfortunately 
too  little  studied  from  this  point  of  view.  Biicher  in  Leipzig  has  cer- 
tainly rendered  a  great  service  in  having  made  the  attempt  to  trace 
back  the  first  beginnings  of  economic  activity. 

My  most  important  task  is,  however,  to  point  out  the  relation  of 
economic  history  to  political  economy,  which  treats  of  the  systematic 
activity  of  a  people  (or  of  mankind)  for  the  satisfaction  of  its  material 
wants.  Both  studies  consider  the  economic  life  of  nations,  the  former 
its  development,  the  latter  the  nature  of  economic  activity  in  gen- 
eral, the  theory  of  economic  life,  and  in  addition,  in  the  study  of 
economic  policy  or  the  special,  practical  division  of  political  economy, 
the  duties  of  the  state  in  the  furtherance  of  the  national  well-being. 
Hence  the  especial  task  of  political  economy  is  to  grasp  the  actual 
conditions  of  the  present,  keeping  in  view  at  the  same  time  the  im- 
mediate future,  whereas  economic  history  deals  exclusively  with  the 
past.  Herein  lies  the  contrast  and  at  the  same  time  the  connection 
between  the  two  studies.  The  attempt  has  indeed  been  made  to 
bridge  over  the  contrast  by  talking  of  contemporary  history,  seeking 
thus  to  open  to  economic  history  the  study  of  the  present.  Of  course 
all  human  activity  which  we  can  observe  is  something  which  has 
already  happened  and  therefore  belongs  to  the  past.  But  that  is 
a  play  upon  words.  It  is  indifferent  to  us  what  the  study  is  called ; 
the  chief  thing  is  that  it  should  be  undertaken. 

After  what  has  been  said,  it  will  need  no  further  discussion  to 
show  that  political  economy  can  just  as  little  dispense  with  the 
study  of  history  as  can  any  other  science.  Even  in  the  dispute  of  the 
Vienna  and  Berlin  schools  of  political  economy,  this  has  been  freely 
admitted  and  expressly  emphasized  by  the  opponents  of  the  historical 
school.  Opinions  are  at  variance  solely  as  to  whether  the  inductive 
or  the  deductive  method  shall  be  regarded  as  the  basis  of  investiga- 
tion, and  as  to  the  extent  to  which  the  division  of  labor  is  in  this 
respect  to  be  applied.  Even  upon  this  point  opinions  have  tended 
to  converge.  Opposition  was  originally  made  more  acute  by  the 
radical  difference  in  the  personal  inclinations  and  abilities  of  the 
leaders. 

Schmoller  as  historian  thought  that  only  through  historical 
studies  could  he  further  his  science,  and  while  for  a  time  it  appeared 
as  if  he  were  inclined  to  merge  political  economy  in  economic  history, 


210  HISTORY   OF   ECONOMIC  INSTITUTIONS 

the  two  volumes  of  his  Grundriss  which  have  recently  appeared 
show  that  he  has  finally  convinced  himself  how  little  his  historical 
studies  alone  sufficed  and  how  indispensable  is  the  deductive  method 
of  the  classical  school  of  political  economy,  as  indeed  he  has  repeatedly 
and  emphatically  stated.  Without  this  method  he  could  certainly 
not  have  produced  the  important  work  which  we  are  so  fortunate 
as  to  possess.  Fully,  however,  as  I  recognize  the  impulse  which  he 
has  given  our  science,  I  cannot  admit  that  upon  the  foundation  of 
economic  history  he  has  erected  any  new  edifice;  rather  he  has 
extended  the  original  structure,  given  it  an  enlarged  and  firmer 
foundation,  and  has  improved  and  adorned  its  interior.  He  cannot 
conceal  from  himself  that  his  historical  investigations  have  done 
less  to  advance  theory  than  its  practical  application,  for  even  in  his 
more  theoretical  work  (it  is  indeed  only  the  allgemeine  TetZ),  theoretical 
examination  of  the  inner  nature  of  economic  activity  takes  a  very 
minor  place.  But  it  cannot  be  denied  that  upon  the  road  already 
entered  much  more  can  be,  and  we  confidently  hope  will  be,  reached. 

Menger  ^  holds  that  in  political  economy  progress  can  be  made 
only  by  isolation  of  the  single  phenomenon,  by  abstraction  of  actual 
processes,  that  is  to  say,  psychologically,  and  that  only  in  this 
manner,  not  through  experience  and  historical  observation,  may 
exact  results  and  economic  laws  be  found.  That  by  his  method  the 
so-called  classical  school  laid  the  foundation  of  our  science,  and 
that  to  the  notable  work  of  men  like  Heinrich  von  Thiinen,  Jevons, 
and  recently,  beside  Menger,  Bohm-Bawerk,  Wieser,  Patten,  we  are 
enduringly  indebted,  there  can  be  no  doubt.  But  it  is  equally  certain 
that  what  they  have  accomplished  has  been  only  within  narrow  limits 
and  that  their  methods  can  be  applied  only  to  a  few  parts  of  our 
enormous  field  of  investigation. 

It  is  undoubtedly  true  that  laws  are  discovered  only  by  abstraction 
from  economic  life,  by  isolation  of  processes  and  of  the  operation 
of  single  factors.  As  the  Vienna  school  desires  to  lay  chief  weight 
in  investigation  upon  the  deductive  method,  and  after  the  example 
of  the  old  school  seeks  to  ascertain  economic  laws  of  nature,  it  is 
clear  that  it  would  assign  to  economic  history  a  merely  subsidiary 
role.  But  the  student  who  is  content  to  start  with  the  view  that  in 
political  economy  only  certain  regularities  may  be  observed,  and 
that  the  problem  is  rather  to  determine  the  modifications  which 
civilization  effects  in  the  operation  of  human  economic  wants  and  to 
observe  the  various  combinations  of  different  cooperating  factors, 
will  strive  to  use  the  method  of  analogy,  to  study  phenomena  in 
different  periods  and  countries,  and  thus  to  render  more  acute  his 
judgment  of  the  present. 

'  Untersuchungen  uber  die  Methode  der  Socialwissenschaften.  Leipzig,  1883. 
Die  Irrtiimer  des  Historismus  in  der  deutschen  Nationalokonomie. 


ECONOMIC  HISTORY  AND   KINDRED  SCIENCES    211 

If,  with  John  Stuart  Mill,  we  identify  political  economy  with  the 
theory  of  value,  or,  with  Menger,  lay  the  chief  stress  in  economic 
investigation  upon  the  determination  of  concepts  of  value,  of  money, 
of  wage  and  price  regulation,  we  must  necessarily  give  the  preference 
to  the  deductive  method.  But  even  here  economic  history  can  per- 
form an  important  service.  It  has  shown  us  the  variations  in  the 
value  of  the  precious  metals  and  of  money  at  different  periods,  and 
thus  leads  us  to  the  causes  by  which  value  is  determined  as  well  as 
to  the  peculiarity  of  the  functions  of  money,  indicating  how  far  it 
partakes  and  how  far  it  divests  itself  of  the  character  of  a  com- 
modity. Only  by  the  empirical  method  have  we  learned  to  under- 
stand the  nature  of  credit  and  the  economic  significance  of  paper 
money,  bills  and  notes.  Tooke  and  Newmarch  and  others,  by  follow- 
ing up  the  history  of  prices,  have  contributed  greatly  to  a  clear 
understanding  of  price  regulation.  The  study  of  wages  during  the 
last  three  decades  has  proved  to  us  in  Germany  that  they  are  not 
determined  solely  by  the  relation  of  demand  and  supply,  but  that  in 
our  stage  of  civilization  ethical  considerations  play  an  important 
part,  that  the  pressure  of  public  opinion  in  favor  of  the  working 
classes  is  a  factor  in  the  regulation  of  wages  and  prices,  which  for- 
merly was  not  at  all  suspected  and  would  scarcely  have  been  discov- 
ered by  the  deductive  method,  at  any  rate  would  certainly  not 
have  been  correctly  estimated,  since  it  varies  with  civilization. 

But  the  limit  of  the  service  which  economic  history  can  perform 
for  political  economy  is  prescribed  by  the  fact  that  in  modern  times 
such  radical  changes  have  taken  place  in  economic  life  and  in  our 
culture  that  conclusions  from  the  past  can  be  drawn  only  in  a  very 
limited  degree  for  the  present.  The  political  economist  must  therefore 
leave  archive  studies  for  the  most  part  to  the  historian,  and  he  must 
regard  it  as  a  principle  that  for  him  the  object  of  historical  studies 
is  not  to  determine  the  conditions  of  the  past  in  themselves,  but  to 
take  account  of  them  only  so  far  as  they  are  needed  to  throw  light 
on  the  present.  The  historian  may  bury  himself  in  the  study  of  a 
remote  period  and  there  remain,  but  the  political  economist  must 
start  with  the  present  and  trace  the  development  back  as  far  as 
appears  necessary  for  his  comprehension.  Historical  work  is  and 
remains  for  him  a  secondary  matter,  the  investigation  of  the  present 
being  of  prime  importance.  The  whole  contrast  between  the  present 
scientific  standpoint  of  political  economy  and  that  of  the  Manchester 
school  lies  undoubtedly  in  the  conception  that  the  guiding  motives 
of  man  in  economic  life  have  not  remained  the  same,  but  have 
experienced  the  utmost  change  through  civilization,  thus  breaking 
down  the  theory  that  human  actions  conform  to  law.  On  the  one 
hand,  therefore,  the  necessity  of  studying  the  development  of  man 
becomes  evident,  and  on  the  other,  the  limited  validity  of  the  ex- 


212  HISTORY  OF   ECONOMIC  INSTITUTIONS 

periences  of  past  times  for  the  present  and  naturally  of  the  present 
for  the  future. 

We  accordingly  reach  the  result  that  between  political  economy 
and  economic  history  there  exists  a  fundamental  difference,  and  that 
the  latter  must  take  an  independent  position  in  its  relation  both  to 
history  and  to  political  economy.  There  can  be  just  as  little  pos- 
sibility that  it  should  be  merged  in  history  as  that  it  should  furnish 
political  economy  with  its  foundation.  Economic  history  must  be 
classed  as  an  independent  science,  while  at  the  same  time  it  should 
render  important  aid  to  political  economy.  It  is  a  pressing  need  of 
the  time  to  establish  chairs  for  economic  history  and  to  provide 
it  with  liberal  means  so  that  it  may  fulfill  its  high  mission  more 
adequately  than  has  hitherto  been  possible.  It  should  be  regarded 
and  treated,  not  as  an  appendage  of  political  economy,  finding  only 
incidental  and  subordinate  application,  but  as  an  independent  branch 
of  study  and  an  end  in  itself. 

If  we  began  with  the  division  of  scientific  labor  and  its  influence 
upon  the  development  of  separate  branches  of  study,  we  must  now 
point  to  the  union  of  labor  which  appears  a  necessity  even  more  in 
science  than  in  economic  life,  lest  the  higher  aim,  the  fullest  possible 
knowledge  of  human  nature  and  activity,  suffer  and  the  uniting 
intellectual  bond  be  lost. 

In  conclusion,  let  us  once  more  briefly  summarize  the  chief  result 
of  our  discussion. 

History  is  the  science  of  human  development  in  all  directions.  It 
commenced  naturally  with  the  organization  of  the  state,  that  is, 
with  political  events.  As  early  as  the  Reformation  period  the  devel- 
opment of  religious  thought  and  legal  institutions  began  not  only  to 
be  studied  but  to  be  brought  into  connection  with  political  history. 
In  the  second  half  of  the  eighteenth  century  were  added  the  develop- 
ment of  art  and  science,  the  history  of  philosophy  and  of  all  literary 
activity.  Thus,  more  and  more,  was  built  up  the  general  history 
of  civilization.  Whether  the  starting-point  should  be  the  state  or 
society  (as  in  sociology)  we  will  not  here  discuss.  Finally  in  recent 
decades  attention  has  also  been  directed  to  economic  life,  and  it  has 
been  recognized  as  a  necessary  supplement  to  history ;  for  it  has  been 
seen  that  the  provision  for  material  needs  is  not  something  unessen- 
tial in  human  life,  but  that  the  problems  thereby  set  mankind  are 
extremely  complicated,  requiring  great  ingenuity  for  their  solution. 
In  recent  times  economic  interests  have  acquired  greater  importance, 
and  begin  more  and  more  to  dominate  political  life.  Not  without 
justice  has  it  been  said  that  the  wars  of  the  future  will  be  caused 
by  the  conflict  of  economic  interests,  not  as  in  earlier  times  by 
questions  of  political  power  or  by  the  ambitions  of  rulers.  Economic 
history  must  thus  become  a  part  of  history  itself,  without,  however, 


ECONOMIC  HISTORY  AND   KINDRED  SCIENCES    213 

in  the  least  disturbing  its  foundation.  It  is  undoubtedly  destined 
to  exercise  a  still  more  important  influence  upon  political  economy, 
and  by  a  more  accurate  knowledge  of  facts  and  their  development 
to  provide  for  it  in  greater  degree  a  solid,  well-built  framework. 
By  this  means  economic  policy  or  practical  political  economy,  which 
has  only  recently  acquired  an  independent  position,  may  gradually 
gain  a  dominating  importance. 

In  this  connection  America  especially  has  lofty  tasks,  I  might 
indeed,  say  duties,  to  fulfill  toward  science.  In  no  other  country 
has  economic  development  progressed  so  characteristically,  so 
rapidly,  and  so  fully  under  the  observation  of  the  watching,  civilized 
world,  and  this  at  a  time  when  statistics  are  constantly  giving  us 
instantaneous  pictures  of  conditions.  The  extremely  valuable  and 
interesting  material  which  is  thus  supplied  must  of  course  be  sup- 
plemented by  special  investigations.  But  so  far  as  I  have  surveyed 
the  literature,  there  seems  to  be  a  great  lack  of  such  special  studies, 
although  to  undertake  them  should  be  a  real  pleasure  for  every 
American  with  economic  interests.  The  attention  of  Americans, 
however,  has  hitherto  been  directed,  naturally  enough,  more  to  the 
future  than  to  the  past. 

What  an  instructive  picture  might  be  drawn  of  the  effect  of  inven- 
tions upon  the  transformation  of  industry!  But  as  to  the  extent 
of  small  industries  and  their  importance  even  at  the  present  day  we 
lack  all  information,  to  say  nothing  of  the  changes  in  the  last  decade. 
And  if  such  a  study  be  made,  it  will  certainly  yield  quite  unexpected 
results,  not  only  for  Germany  but  for  America,  and  will  remove 
considerable  prejudice. 

The  changes  in  the  size  of  holdings  of  landed  property  and  of 
agricultural  industry  in  different  parts  of  this  country,  resulting 
from  colonization  and  the  extension  of  the  railroad  system,  and  the 
consequent  lowering  of  the  prices  of  agricultural  products,  are  most 
instructive  even  for  purely  theoretical  investigation.  To  be  sure, 
statistical  data  alone  would  not  suffice,  least  of  all  in  the  broad 
averages  usually  given,  but  changes  should  be  traced  in  detail  for 
small  areas  in  different  regions  which  may  be  regarded  as  typical. 
We  most  keenly  need  a  history  of  prices  and  wages  for  America. 
Much  that  is  valuable  is  offered  to  us  on  the  financial  history  of  the 
United  States,  of  the  separate  states  as  well  as  of  a  few  municipalities, 
but  of  the  smaller  towns  we  know  almost  nothing.  Yet  it  is  precisely 
the  comparison  of  these  different  bodies  which  would  be  of  extreme 
interest  for  the  science  of  finance. 

It  would  be  easy  to  multiply  examples,  but  I  shall  give  only  one 
more  here.  One  of  the  most  important  questions  of  the  time  is 
whether  the  course  of  modern  development  leads  to  the  destruction 
of  the  middle  class  or  whether  it  raises  and  strengthens  this  class.  Is 


214  HISTORY   OF   ECONOMIC  INSTITUTIONS 

the  colossal  wealth  of  individuals  accumulated  at  the  cost  of  the 
lower  and  middle  classes  or  is  it  developed  concurrently  with  the 
wealth  of  all  classes?  Opinions  stand  in  violent  opposition.  A  deter- 
mination of  the  form  which  this  relation  has  here  taken  would  be 
nothing  less  than  decisive,  for  all  the  characteristics  of  the  prevailing 
tendency  are  here  more-  pronounced  than  anywhere  else  and  their 
effects  are  typical,  though  only  of  course  conditionally,  for  European 
countries.  The  question  naturally  cannot  be  solved  with  the  first 
attempt,  but  it  is  capable  of  solution  if  all  the  different  phenomena 
of  social  and  economic  life  are  taken  into  account. 

American  students  could  do  us,  science,  and  their  own  country 
no  greater  service  than  by  devoting  themselves  to  the  historical 
investigation  of  their  own  economic  life.  We  surely  on  our  side 
shall  not  fall  behind  them  in  the  corresponding  study  of  European 
economic  history.  But  here  also  comparison  and  cooperation  in 
the  labor  of  the  two  halves  of  the  world  will  prove  exceedingly 
fruitful  and  even  decisive  for  progress. 


THE   PRESENT   PROBLEMS   IN   THE   ECONOMIC    INTER- 
PRETATION OF   HISTORY 

BY    SIMON    NELSON    PATTEN 

[Simon  Nelson  Patten,  Professor  of  Political  Economy,  University  of  Pennsylvania, 
since  1888.  b.  May  1,  1852,  Sandwich,  Illinois.  A.M.  Halle,  Germany;  Ph.D. 
1878.  Member  of  American  Academy  of  Political  and  Social  Science,  American 
Economic  Association.  Author  of  Development  of  English  Thought;  Theory  of 
Social  Forces;  Economic  Basis  of  Protection;  Heredity  and  Social  Progress,  etc.] 

To  the  man  of  theory  and  often  to  the  man  of  practice  the  study 
of  history  seems  a  useless  occupation.  Both  have  an  interest  in  the 
present  and  demand  solution  of  present  problems.  Has  history  any- 
thing to  offer  these  men,  and  can  its  methods  be  applied  to  the 
investigation  of  present  conditions?  At  first  sight  the  theorist  gains 
little  from  its  perusal.  He  finds  the  attention  of  historians  limited 
to  events  of  little  present  importance;  wars  occupy  more  space  than 
the  avocations  of  peace,  and  personal  affairs  are  discussed  to  the 
neglect  of  social  tendencies  and  principles. 

If  a  reader  overlooks  the  prolix  statements  of  non-essentials  to 
which  some  historians  are  prone  and  seeks  principles  to  guide  present 
action,  what  does  he  find  but  the  familiar  assertion,  "History  repeats 
itself"?  Driven  back  from  history,  the  searcher  for  present  guidance 
once  more  resorts  to  theory,  in  the  hope  that  some  light  maybe  struck 
that  shows  the  road  he  is  blindly  seeking.  But  all  in  vain. 

Is  there  no  link  between  these  two  disconnected  methods  of 
research?  Must  the  past  be  interpreted  by  a  method  that  yields  no 
valuable  results  and  the  present  by  a  method  that  discards  all 
reference  to  the  past? 

This  opposition  and  these  defects  continued  for  a  long  time  before 
any  remedy  was  suggested.  Historians  sneered  at  the  theorist,  and 
the  economist  had  an  openly  expressed  contempt  for  those  who 
did  not  use  his  methods.  It  is  only  of  late  that  a  new  method  of 
research  has  arisen,  giving  to  history  a  wider  meaning  and  offering 
to  the  economist  a  test  for  his  theories. 

Progress  in  this  direction  has,  however,  been  slow.  The  historical 
appetite  for  facts  is  in  a  measure  satisfied  by  the  study  of  the  eco- 
nomic conditions  of  earlier  times.  It  acted  as  a  limitation  on  theo- 
rizing to  know  that  the  conditions  economists  emphasized  as  parts 
of  a  perpetual  economy  were  of  recent  origin  and  have  appUcation 
to  but  a  small  section  of  humanity.  The  doctrines  of  free  com- 
petition, personal  liberty,  free  trade,  individual  bargaining,  and  like 
tenets  of  the  current  economic  philosophy  thus  lost  their  positiDn 


216  HISTORY   OF   ECONOMIC  INSTITUTIONS 

of  supremacy,  and  sunk  into  the  company  of  the  minor  doctrines 
that  are  plainly  limited  by  time  and  space. 

The  resulting  changes  in  mental  attitude  are  in  a  large  measure 
due  to  the  efforts  of  the  historical  economists,  who  taught  the  limit- 
ations to  which  all  economic  doctrines  are  subjected.  Yet  in  spite 
of  a  breadth  of  view  and  great  command  of  facts,  they  did  not  destroy 
the  old  school,  but  merely  compelled  its  adherents  to  make  more 
modest  statements.  This  failure  was  due  to  the  lack  of  a  method  of 
historical  interpretation  in  harmony  with  the  facts  they  were  using 
and  the  conditions  they  were  investigating. 

Economic  history  and  the  economic  interpretation  of  history 
are  different  concepts,  and  have  been  forced  upon  public  attention 
by  two  different  groups  of  thinkers.  Economic  history  is  a  question 
of  facts  —  of  the  discovery  and  utilization  of  those  facts  of  yesterday 
of  which  the  economist  of  to-day  avails  himself.  The  economic 
interpretation  of  history  is  a  study  of  these  data  and  of  the  method 
of  utilizing  them.  It  enables  us  to  reason  about  past  events  in  the 
same  way  we  reason  about  present  events,  and  to  find  common  prin- 
ciples that  will  apply  to  both.  Economic  dogmatism  concentrates 
attention  on  the  dominant  features  of  a  given  age  or  nation.  Economic 
interpretation  eliminates  dogmatism  by  comparing  the  dominant 
features  of  many  ages,  and  clearly  presents  their  points  of  difference 
and  similarity.  In  this  way  a  new  theory  arises,  with  a  broader  basis 
and  more  closely  in  touch  not  only  with  history  but  also  with  the 
sciences  from  which  the  economic  premises  come. 

There  are,  however,  two  diverging  lines  of  thought,  each  of  which 
is  called  an  economic  interpretation  of  history.  One  group  of  men 
ask:  What  light  can  history  throw  on  present  events?  Their  interest 
is  in  the  present,  and  they  use  history  as  a  method  of  interpreting 
it.  The  other  group  ask:  What  light  can  our  knowledge  of  present 
events  and  conditions  throw  on  those  of  past  ages?  The  first  group 
assumes  a  knowledge  of  the  past  superior  to  that  of  the  present 
and  hopes  to  use  this  knowledge  to  clear  away  the  difficulties  of 
interpreting  contemporary  events.  The  second  group  contends  that 
our  knowledge  of  present  economic  conditions  is  greater  than  that 
of  past  ages  and  hence  that  it  can  help  us  to  supplement  our  meagre 
knowledge  of  the  past. 

If  we  wish  to  be  accurate  in  the  use  of  terms,  this  first  viewpoint 
should  not  be  called  an  economic  interpretation  of  history,  but  an 
historical  interpretation  of  the  present.  That  which  is  interpreted 
is  not  history  but  current  events,  while  the  method  used  is  not  eco- 
nomic but  historical.  It  is  only  the  second  viewpoint  that  attempts 
to  interpret  history,  and  does  it  by  an  economic  method. 

It  will  add  to  the  clearness  of  the  contrast  if  the  term  "  history  " 
be  eliminated.    History  in  both  cases  is  used  in  a  popular  way,  and 


PRESENT   PROBLEMS  217 

as  a  result  its  interpreters  fall  into  a  needless  conflict  with  those 
historians  who  want  the  facts  of  the  past  rather  than  their  present 
significance. 

It  would  be  clearer  to  speak  of  the  social  interpretation  of  current 
events  instead  of  the  historical  interpretation.  Those  who  employ 
this  method  are  interested  in  social  affairs  and  use  social  methods 
of  investigation  and  social  principles  oftener  than  historical  methods 
and  principles.  It  is  still  more  clear  to  speak  of  the  traditional 
interpretation  of  current  events.  The  facts  presented  and  the 
ideals  emphasized  are  those  which,  wrought  over  into  popular  tra- 
dition, have  become  motives  prompting  intuitive  response.  The 
popular  historian  seizes  the  telling  events  of  the  world's  history 
and  by  recounting  them  vividly  tends  to  make  people  act  to-day 
as  their  forefathers  acted  in  the  epoch-making  struggles  through 
which  the  race  has  gone.  "  Act  to-day  as  your  fathers  acted  in  their 
day."  This  advice  may  seem  the  hand  of  history,  but  it  is  the  voice 
of  tradition.  The  economic  interpretation  of  history  starts  with 
an  analysis  of  present  conditions  and  opens  the  way  to  a  theory 
of  social  causation.  In  contrast  with  this  method  the  historical 
interpretation  of  present  events  accepts  the  traditional  view  of  the 
past  and  uses  social  prediction  as  a  means  of  exerting  social  influence. 
The  prophet  strives  to  be  a  social  leader.  Economic  interpretation 
as  a  method  thus  stands  in  contrast  with  social  prediction.  There 
is  no  real  opposition  between  economics  and  history  or  between  eco- 
nomics and  sociology.  It  is  only  in  the  field  of  prediction  that  opposi- 
tion appears.  The  scientific  historian  avoids  the  conflict  by  refusing 
to  predict,  but  as  the  historian  becomes  modest,  the  social  enthusiast 
becomes  bolder,  and,  using  the  same  methods  as  the  predicting  his- 
torian, he  falls  into  similar  errors. 

Should  social  investigation  begin  with  a  study  of  the  past  and 
predict  events  from  it  as  a  base,  or  should  a  study  of  the  present  be 
first  made  and  its  results  be  used  to  interpret  the  past?  Of  the  past 
we  have  social  tradition;  of  the  present  we  have  economic  knowledge; 
which  is  the  more  reliable  as  the  basis  of  deduction? 

Were  not  the  knowledge  of  the  past  defective,  its  study  might 
give  a  starting-point  equally  valuable  with  economic  interpretation 
that  starts  from  the  firm  foundation  of  present  fact.  The  first  canon 
of  social  prediction  is,  "History  repeats  itself."  A  series  of  repeated 
effects  occurring  under  similar  social  institutions  gives  ground  for  the 
judgment  that  these  institutions  will  always  produce  like  effects. 

In  contrast  with  this,  economic  interpretation  starts  wdth  the 
assumption  that  like  economic  causes  produce  like  social  results. 
Prediction  can  be  made  from  one  race  or  civilization  to  others  only 
as  the  economic  conditions  back  of  them  are  the  same.  It  is  not  like 
race,  like  institutions,  like  tradition,  or  like  consciousness*  of  kind, 


218  HISTORY  OF   ECONOMIC  INSTITUTIONS 

but  like  economic  conditions  that  give  a  sound  basis  for  prediction. 
Social  prediction  is  of  necessity  based  on  data  drawn  from  different 
races,  institutions,  and  civilizations.  This  evidence  has  little  value 
unless  a  similarity  of  economic  conditions  exists  as  the  antecedent 
of  race,  institution,  or  civilization.  An  econonyc  interpretation  of 
past  events  must  therefore  precede  valid  prediction. 

There  are  two  channels  in  which  thought  runs  and  two  bases 
on  which  it  rests.  The  physical  environment  of  a  man  is  made 
up  of  objects  upon  which  welfare  depends.  The  force  that  per- 
petuates and  increases  this  contact  is  desire.  No  object  is  a  part 
of  the  conscious  environment  of  men  until  they  desire  it  or  the 
means  of  avoiding  it.  Thought  based  on  desire  or  arising  out  of  its 
influence  is  plainly  economic.  But  thought  has  another  element  not 
derived  from  the  immediate  objects  of  interest.  This  is  tradition. 
Past  conditions  and  events  do  not  persist.  The  events  and  condi- 
tions of  to-day  cease  with  to-day,  but  new  ones  appear  to-morrow. 
Economic  conditions  are  thus  short-lived,  but  the  habits  and  thoughts 
that  yesterday's  conditions  evoked  live  on  and  modify  the  present. 

The  newer  biology  makes  the  distinction  between  natural  and 
acquired  characters  and  affirms  that  the  latter  are  not  inherited. 
All  acquired  knowledge  must  pass  from  generation  to  generation  by 
the  repeated  impressment  of  habits  and  thought  upon  the  individuals 
of  succeeding  generations.  This  knowledge  depending  on  constant 
repetition  for  its  continuance  is  tradition,  and  imitation  is  its  great 
vitalizing  force.  Economic  thought  is  the  social  expression  of  desire 
as  tradition  is  the  social  expression  of  imitation.  These  two  forces 
control  current  events,  and  the  differing  interpretations  of  the  past 
and  the  present  depend  upon  the  relative  emphasis  given  them. 

Professor  Giddings  has  shown  that  the  stimuli  arousing  activity 
are  of  two  orders.^  The  original  stimuli  come  from  the  immediate 
environment;  the  secondary  stimuli  are  the  products  of  past  social 
life  kept  alive  in  the  present.  These  products  of  past  social  life  have, 
however,  only  one  way  of  being  continued,  and  that  is  through 
the  constant  repetition  that  creates  tradition.  The  original  stimuli 
also  are  of  no  importance  unless  they  awake  response,  and  this 
response  is  desire. 

Changing  the  viewpoint  from  stimuli  to  that  of  response  to  stimuli 
makes  desire  and  tradition  the  sole  forces  that  determine  present 
action.  In  this  contrast  tradition  includes  all  of  the  products  of 
past  responses  that  have  been  continued  through  imitation  rein- 
forced by  repetition.  These  traditions  blend,  and  as  they  blend 
they  become  the  basis  of  history,  institutions,  and  ideals.  Desire 
operating  under  favorable  conditions  creates  mobility  of  men  and 

'  "  A  Tkeory  of  Social  Causation,"  a  paper  read  before  the  American  Economic 
Association  at  the  New  Orleans  meeting. 


PRESENT   PROBLEMS  219 

goods.  This  mobility  concentrates  men  in  productive  regions,  who 
bring  with  them  the  traditions  of  the  locahties  they  leave.  The 
mixing  of  population  forces  a  blending  of  traditions.  Opposing 
elements  are  suppressed  while  similarities  are  emphasized,  and  around 
them  the  old  traditions  cluster  in  new  forms.  These  blended  tradi- 
tions are  elevated  into  morahty,  broadened  into  ideals,  and  pro- 
jected as  standards  of  future  action. 

Each  new  mingling  of  population  due  to  an  increase  of  resources 
makes  a  breach  between  economic  conditions  and  inherited  social 
traditions.  Before  an  equilibrium  is  reestablished  a  transformation 
of  tradition  takes  place,  giving  higher  ideals  and  better  institutions. 
The  breach  between  economic  thought  and  social  idealism  is  thus 
steadily  widened  and  the  opposition  between  them  is  more  pro- 
nounced. In  its  lower  forms  tradition  is  the  result  of  conflict,  and 
reflects  the  opposition  arising  when  men  contest  for  the  meagre  results 
of  isolated  localities.  It  is  usually  expressed  in  race  feelings  and 
hatreds.  In  its  higher  forms,  however,  tradition  is  an  expression 
of  likeness.  A  consciousness  of  opposition  and  fear  is  replaced  by 
a  consciousness  of  kind. 

Each  element  in  a  composite  population  has  its  own  traditions, 
which  blend  with  other  traditions  only  when  the  common  points  are 
emphasized  and  the  antagonisms  are  suppressed.  The  oft-repeated 
stories  of  the  old  life  are  retold  so  as  to  interest  larger  audiences. 
To  each  group  of  hearers  the  newly  told  story  can  have  a  meaning 
only  when  it  incorporates  some  of  the  tradition  with  which  it  is 
familiar.  Writers  and  orators  instinctively  suppress  points  of  dis- 
cord, and  blend  and  elevate  what  appeals  to  all.  Tradition  is  thereb}'- 
transformed  into  idealism,  and  becomes  a  standard  far  above  that 
realized  by  individual  men. 

Government  in  England,  for  example,  is  plainly  a  group  of  tra- 
ditions. Transferred  to  America  it  becomes  political  institutions, 
transferred  again  to  cosmopolitan  France  it  appears  as  political 
ideals,  while  in  centralized  Germany  it  is  further  transformed  into 
social  democracy.  Each  step  has  resulted  from  the  discarding  of 
local  antagonisms  and  the  emphasis  of  generalized  truth. 

Because  of  the  simple  conditions  under  which  the  Republican 
party  arose  it  could  concentrate  its  attention  on  three  evils,  Rum, 
Romanism,  and  Rebellion;  but  in  recent  years,  to  meet  the  condi- 
tions of  a  more  composite  population,  it  has  been  forced  to  elevate 
its  standards  and  to  generaUze  its  principles  until  it  appeals  to  the 
classes,  sections,  and  races  it  formerly  antagonized.  The  narrow 
tradition  of  the  primitive  American  is  thus  transformed  into  a  broad 
liberalism,  and  the  American  Government  becomes  capable  of 
handling  race  problems  that  our  forefathers  left  untouched. 

A  labor  leader  who  undertakes  to  organize  unskilled  -laborers 


220  HISTORY   OF  ECONOMIC  INSTITUTIONS 

finds  a  race  consciousness  built  up  on  race  antagonism.  When 
his  thought  is  translated  into  the  language  of  his  hearers,  words 
are  used  which  express  the  hatreds  surviving  as  race  traditions. 
The  employer  is  associated  with  the  foreign  misrule,  and  the  pent-up 
feelings  which  in  their  old  homes  went  out  against  their  race  oppress- 
ors are  turned  upon  him.  A  class  consciousness  is  thus  developed 
that  submerges  the  race  antagonisms  of  earlier  epochs  and  prepares 
the  way  for  a  broader  citizenship.  Race  responses  are  replaced 
by  class  responses,  and  these  by  social  cooperative  responses,  which 
in  turn  are  elevated  into  a  democratic  cosmopolitanism.  Every 
transformation  of  tradition  gives  to  its  standards  a  greater  coercive 
force.  The  result  is  idealism  which  by  covering  the  future  as  a  social 
projection  gains  a  universality  akin  to  religion. 

Social  mobility  arises  from  the  pressure  of  increasing  desire; 
social  stability  from  the  growth  of  tradition.  Social  projection 
is  the  union  of  the  two  to  be  realized  only  in  the  distant  future. 
With  these  forces  at  work  there  can  be  a  steady  transformation  of 
tradition  from  a  crude  form  of  ancestor  worship  to  an  attractive 
social  Utopia  where  all  ideals  become  realities. 

I  give  below  some  of  the  stages  through  which  thought  passes 
during  this  transformation.    In  a  rough  way  they  indicate  the  line 
of  progress  though  no  claim  is  made  to  strict  accuracy: 
Imitation,  Biography, 

Tradition,  History, 

Ancestor  worship.  Romanticism, 

Hero  worship.  Literary  lore, 

Primitive  poetry.  Individualism, 

Precedents,  Idealism, 

Codes,  Social  democracy. 

Morality,  Social  projection. 

Social  democracy  fixes  the  attention  on  the  present,  and  hence 
tends  to  emphasize  the  distribution  of  wealth.  Social  projection 
pictures  an  improving  future,  and  concentrates  interest  more  on  the 
accumulation  of  the  wealth  and  the  bettering  of  industrial  pro- 
cesses than  on  its  distribution  and  consumption. 

I  hope  it  has  now  been  made  clear  that  the  traditional  inter- 
pretation, the  historical  interpretation,  the  social  interpretation,  and 
the  idealistic  interpretation  of  current  events  are  practically  the 
same.  They  differ  from  one  another  only  in  the  degree  that  the 
idealistic  transformation  of  thought  has  taken  place.  They  all 
strive  to  influence  the  present  and  to  improve  human  conduct  through 
the  study  of  past  examples.  The  blending  of  traditions  accomplishes 
this  result,  and  hence  tradition  and  history  pass  over  into  idealism 
by  easy  stages.  Economic  practice  becomes  tradition  and  tradition 
is  restated  until  it  is  transformed  into  institutions,  ideals,  and  social 


PRESENT  PROBLEMS  221 

principles.  All  this  helps  to  make  good  conduct,  but  it  is  not  a 
safe  basis  for  prediction. 

We  cannot  accept  this  traditional  interpretation  because  tradition 
has  been  transformed  by  its  growth.  Still  less  can  we  accept  an 
"economic"  interpretation  of  current  events  because  other  than 
economic  causes  have  helped  to  shape  the  present.  The  "  all  eco- 
nomic "  or  material  interpretation  of  the  present  is  defective  because 
it  neglects  the  effect  of  heredity  and  tradition  on  human  conduct. 
The  traditional  or  idealistic  interpretation  is  likewise  defective 
because  it  neglects  the  changes  in  economic  conditions  that  make 
present  sequences  in  events  different  from  those  of  the  past.  Through 
the  economic  interpretation  of  the  past  the  similarities  and  differ- 
ences in  present  and  past  conditions  are  brought  to  light  and  the 
limitations  to  social  prediction  become  manifest. 

Nor  is  economic  interpretation  the  method  of  economists  as 
opposed  to  that  of  historians  and  of  sociologists.  Economists  are 
bound  as  tightly  as  other  thinkers  by  the  chains  of  tradition.  The 
rapid  development  of  the  Ricardian  tradition  is  evidence  of  this. 
Nor  is  the  new  thought  exclusively  the  work  of  economists.  Von 
Ihering's  Evolution  of  the  Aryan  stands  the  tests  of  economic 
interpretation  better  than  does  the  work  of  Karl  Marx.  The  theory 
of  exploitation  is  the  transformation  of  a  class  tradition  into  a  form 
of  idealism.    This  is  of  social  importance,  but  not  an  economic  law. 

I  give  below  some  of  the  canons  of  economic  interpretation,  so  that 
the  validity  of  social  creeds  may  be  more  easily  measured.  Economic 
interpretation  tests  these  as  science  tests  the  miraculous  in  nature. 

(1)  Like  economic  causes  produce  like  social  effects. 

(2)  Progress  depends  on  the  increase  of  resources. 

(3)  An  economic  interpretation  of  past  events  must  precede  an 
historical  interpretation  of  present  events. 

(4)  Economic  interpretation  must  precede  social  prediction. 

(5)  Social  causes  have  economic  antecedents. 

(6)  A  study  of  economic  epochs  should  precede  a  study  of  nations 
and  races. 

(7)  Traditions  blend  which  in  their  union  strengthen  and  elevate 
each  other. 

(8)  The  greatness  of  men  is  due  not  to  their  moments  of  inspira- 
tion, but  to  the  conflicting  discipUnes  to  which  they  have 
been  subjected. 

Much  of  the  present  confusion  of  thought  would  be  obviated 
if  it  were  kept  in  mind  that  progress  depends  on  an  increase  of 
resources.  In  the  study  of  an  epoch  or  nation  it  must  first  be  deter- 
mined whether  resources  are  decaying  or  improving.  The  decline 
of  Rome  was  inevitable  as  soon  as  Italian  resources  fell  off.  Rome 
could  extend  its  rule  by  conquest  and  make  individuals  and  even 


222  HISTORY  OF   ECONOMIC  INSTITUTIONS 

armies  wealthy  by  plunder,  but  this  burden  on  the  conquered  races 
helped  their  decline,  which  in  turn  further  weakened  the  Roman 
State. 

It  was  the  long,  steady  pressure  of  decaying  resources  that  crushed 
Rome,  as  it  has  crushed  other  nations  similarly  situated.  Immoral- 
ity and  extravagance  hurt  to-day,  but  they  have  little  permanent 
influence  if  the  creation  of  wealth  has  gone  on  unimpeded.  Each 
age  brings  up  new  men  under  the  discipline  of  work,  and  their 
descendants  give  tone  to  the  succeeding  age.  Should  they  drop  out 
through  wrong-doing,  their  places  are  filled  by  a  new  generation 
of  workers,  as  new  blades  of  grass  come  in  the  place  of  those  cut. 
Give  rain  and  we  have  grass;  give  work  and  we  have  men. 

We  need  not  go  beyond  the  domain  of  geography  to  seek  the 
error  in  the  social  and  historical  lore  that  is  made  the  basis  of  current 
prediction.  The  region  occupied  by  the  Western  civilizations  of 
the  Old  World  is  divided  into  two  parts,  by  the  Alps  and  the  chains 
of  mountains  that  extend  eastward.  Asia  Minor,  North  Africa,  and 
the  south  slope  of  Europe  are  thus  one  geographical  unit.  The 
north  of  Europe  forms  a  similar  geographic  unit.  The  Gulf  Stream 
gives  up  its  moisture  to  the  northern  plain.  The  westerly  winds 
in  the  central  basin  are  dry,  bringing  little  moisture  from  the  ocean 
beyond.  Droughts  are  common  and  the  source  of  great  misery. 
The  vast  northern  plain  suffers  from  an  excess  of  rain  and  from 
a  lack  of  sun.  Its  crops,  like  the  cereals,  can  stand  plenty  of  rain, 
while  root  crops  prevail  in  the  central  basin  where  heat  and  sun  are 
abundant  though  rain  is  deficient.  I  need  not  go  into  details  to  show 
that  these  two  regions  stand  in  marked  contrast,  and  that  scarcely 
a  physical  feature  which  is  important  in  the  one  prevails  in  the 
other.  If  economic  forces  count,  these  two  regions  should  produce 
radically  different  civilizations,  institutions,  and  social  traditions. 

The  German  differed  essentially  from  the  Roman  when  the  two 
civilizations  came  in  contact.  But  as  the  southern  civilization 
proved  superior,  the  traditions,  institutions,  and  culture  of  the  south 
were  impressed  on  the  north,  and  so  thoroughly  has  this  work  been 
done  that  the  imposed  institutions  and  social  traditions  now  seem 
a  second  nature.  We  have  so  completely  exchanged  ancestors 
that  we  think  in  the  terms  of  the  Roman,  Greek,  and  Semite  rather 
than  in  terms  of  the  German.  We  accept  as  precedents  the  traditions 
developed  to  meet  the  conditions  of  the  dry,  hot  south  and  forget 
to  test  them  by  a  comparison  of  the  two  environments.  Roman 
precedents  are  good  in  North  Europe  only  in  so  far  as  their  physical 
characteristics  are  the  same. 

Viewed  in  this  way  it  will  be  seen  how  completely  predictions 
based  on  the  conditions  of  the  south  fail  when  applied  to  the  north. 
The  history  of  the  southern  regions  shows  a  succession  of  races  and 


PRESENT   PROBLEMS  223 

nations,  each  having  a  period  of  prosperity  followed  by  a  period  of 
decay  and  a  final  disappearance.  That  nations  have  a  period  of 
youth,  manhood,  and  decay  —  that  the  history  of  each  individual 
life  is  repeated  in  the  history  of  nations  —  is  a  view  based  on  the 
economic  conditions  of  Southern  Europe  and  Western  Asia. 

But  is  this  law  of  the  rise  and  decay  of  nations  a  general  law 
or  a  pecuUarity  of  the  region  where  southern  civilization  arose? 
It  is  plainly  a  local  law.  I  have  only  to  show  that  the  slight  rain- 
fall of  these  regions  has  geologic  causes  in  order  to  demonstrate  that 
the  decline  of  nations  was  due  neither  to  social  conditions  nor  failings, 
but  was  the  inevitable  result  of  changed  climatic  conditions. 

Progress  is  due  to  the  increase  of  resources ;  decline  in  civilization 
follows  a  failure  of  resources.  A  tragic  end  awaits  a  nation  cramped 
by  a  reduction  of  the  food  supply.  There  are  many  ways  of  proving 
this,  but  I  shall  take  a  bold  one  that  demands  some  imagination. 
The  land  masses  of  this  central  basin  seem  in  early  historic  epochs 
or  in  those  that  immediately  precede  them  to  have  risen  to  higher 
levels,  converting  many  depressions  occupied  by  lakes  and  seas  into 
sandy  wastes.  Lower  the  level  of  the  Sahara  by  five  hundred  feet 
and  it  would  become  an  inland  sea.  When  this  region  was  covered 
with  water  the  southwest  winds  were  moist  and  carried  abundant 
rains  to  the  eastern  plateaus.  Arabia  and  Persia  could  then  have 
lakes  where  now  there  is  only  blowing  sand.  The  high  lands  would 
have  a  verdant  foliage  and  be  fit  centres  for  growing  nations. 

When  civilized  men  gained  a  foothold  in  this  region  the  elevation 
of  land  may  have  been  completed  and  the  decline  in  rainfall  begun. 
The  uplands  would  so  become  fine  grazing  land  and  the  lowlands 
would  be  centres  of  agricultural  activity.  Careless  tillage  and  the 
destruction  of  trees  would  increase  the  natural  denudation  of  the 
uplands  and  render  them  less  habitable.  This  would  force  an  unrest 
in  the  upland  population,  a  movement  to  lower  levels  and  a  struggle 
for  their  possession.  This  contest,  once  begun,  would  be  a  perpetual 
process.  Each  downward  movement  of  population  would  develop 
a  new  civilization,  enduring  until  another  unrest  in  the  highlands 
brought  a  new  horde  of  barbarians  to  destroy  it  and  in  turn  to 
develop  a  new  one.  Region  after  region  was  thus  denuded  and 
civilization  after  civilization  fell  before  the  steady  pressure  of  the 
upland  races  forced  out  of  their  habitat  by  the  increasing  dryness. 
A  decreasing  rainfall  and  an  increasing  denudation  of  land  forces 
nations  to  move  rapidly  through  the  various  stages  of  progress 
and  in  the  end  crushes  them  through  the  lack  of  resources. 

There  is,  therefore,  a  long  series  of  these  short-Hved  nations, 
each  repeating  the  other's  history,  because  back  of  them  were  the 
same  processes  of  growth  and  decay.  The  tradition  of  these  se- 
quences is  the  basis  of  the  maxim  that  history  repeats  itself,  while 


224  HISTORY  OF   ECONOMIC  INSTITUTIONS 

the  struggles  to  resist  invasion  by  developing  the  hero  idea  gave 
rise  to  the  modern  notions  of  character.  But  the  law  is  neither 
an  historical  nor  a  social  law;  it  is  merely  the  pressure  of  geologic 
changes  on  the  civilization  of  a  given  region.  Outside  of  the  great 
central  basin  the  law  fails  of  verification  because  the  climatic  con- 
ditions are  altered. 

In  marked  contrast  with  these  climatic  conditions  are  those  of 
the  great  northern  plain  of  Europe.  A  rank  vegetation  keeps  up  the 
fertility  and-  usually  replaces  what  is  lost.  Each  generation,  sees 
North  Europe  more  productive  and  capable  of  supporting  a  larger 
population.  Growth  and  stability  will  thus  be  a  characteristic  of 
the  northern  nations  so  long  as  the  Gulf  Stream  flows.  They  have 
a  perpetually  improving  economy,  giving  a  firm  basis  for  enduring 
social  institutions. 

No  nation  of  North  Europe  goes  down  as  the  southern  nations 
went  down  one  after  the  other.  A  reconstruction  of  national  bound- 
aries often  takes  place;  but  with  each  reconstruction  comes  a  period 
of  renewed  growth  and  prosperity.  France  has  been  the  only  appar- 
ent exception.  Instability  in  government  followed  its  great  social 
revolution  and  gave  to  traditional  views  a  new  life.  But  order  and 
stability  have  again  been  restored  and  the  steady  progress  of  France 
compares  favorably  with  other  nations. 

If  this  be  true  the  traditional  view  of  the  course  of  history  needs 
correction  and  the  mass  of  southern  traditions  imposed  on  northern 
nations  by  the  new  civilization  that  Christianity  brought  must  each 
be  tested  by  means  of  a  comparison  between  the  conditions  under 
which  it  arose  with  the  conditions  that  now  prevail.  The  narrowness 
and  defects  of  southern  traditions  will  then  be  exposed  and  the 
ground  cleared  for  a  new  view  of  history  based  on  the  conditions 
and  experience  of  North  Europe. 

The  realization  of  this  great  break  in  economic  conditions,  due 
to  the  transference  of  civilization  from  the  south  to  the  north  of 
Europe,  and  the  consciousness  that  many  of  our  cherished  traditions 
are  abnormal,  help  us  to  a  fruitful  study  of  present  conditions.  A 
new  break  of  similar  magnitude  has  been  made  by  the  transference 
of  civilization  to  America. 

The  civilizations  of  North  Europe  are  enduring  because  their 
basis  in  climatic  conditions  is  secure;  but  while  enduring,  they  are 
narrow  and  cramped  because  their  food  resources  are  so  limited. 
A  wet,  cold  climate  is  good  for  grass  and  the  cereals,  and  therefore 
bread  and  meat  become  the  standard  of  life.  The  pressure  of  popu- 
lation has  raised  their  price  and  kept  the  common  people  poor  and 
dependent.  Under  these  conditions  a  civilization  could  continue, 
but  not  without  great  abnormalities  due  to  high  prices.  All  these 
restraints  were  escaped  in  America,  and  for  the  first  time  a  natural 


PRESENT   PROBLEMS  225 

level  of  food  prices  permits  a  normal  development  of  civilization. 
Not  only  has  America  a  better  food  supply  than  Europe,  but  the 
barriers  to  commerce  have  been  so  far  broken  down  as  to  make  the 
food  supply  of  the  whole  world  available  at  our  great  centres. 

A  new  civilization  is  now  possible  to  which  those  of  the  past 
can  offer  few  analogies.  Individual  struggle  has  practically  ceased. 
A  sufficiency  of  food  comes  to  the  unskilled  laborer,  and  the  increase 
of  population,  even  when  augmented  by  a  million  immigrants  a 
year,  does  not  increase  the  pressure.  We  have  higher  standards 
to-day  with  80,000,000  people  than  we  had  two  generations  ago 
with  40,000,000  people,  and  we  could  support  300,000,000  with  as 
great  ease  and  with  as  little  individual  struggle.  Surely  this  is 
a  break  of  a  magnitude  that  the  world  has  never  before  seen,  and 
should  be  followed  not  only  by  a  great  uplift  in  social  standards 
but  also  by  changes  in  traditions,  institutions,  and  ideals  that  will 
separate  our  civilization  from  its  predecessors  and  give  it  not  only 
perpetuity  but  breadth. 

The  facts  on  which  this  judgment  rests  are  so  familiar  that  they 
will,  I  fear,  make  dry  reading.  Our  resources  and  growth  have  been 
often  pictured,  but  men  do  not  realize  what  they  mean.  They  think 
of  our  traditions,  institutions,  and  ideals,  transferred  in  the  main 
from  other  civilizations,  as  unchangeable  possessions,  and  fail  to  see 
the  growth  and  transformation  through  which  all  things  social  go. 
I  must  repeat  these  familiar  facts,  however,  to  make  my  point 
as  to  the  present  importance  of  the  economic  interpretation  of 
history. 

The  Great  Central  Plain  of  North  America  is  a  vast  storehouse 
of  food.  We  have  the  wheat  that  Europe  has,  but  we  have  it  more 
abundantly.  We  have  more  extensive  grazing  regions,  and  with 
com  for  fodder  have  superior  facilities  for  raising  cattle.  Pork 
never  took  its  proper  place  in  the  diet  of  the  world  until  the  great 
cornfields  of  the  West  came  into  existence.  Of  all  these  staple- 
articles  of  ancestral  diet  vast  quantities  more  might  be  raised  without 
putting  undue  pressure  on  the  soil.  Our  warm  summers  and  clear 
climate  make  root  crops  even  more  productive  than  the  cereals.. 
To  think  of  the  changes  in  diet  that  the  cheapening  of  sugar  has- 
made  is  to  realize  in  a  measure  what  an  increase  of  population  will 
follow  the  full  utilization  of  available  root  crops.  We  have  com- 
bined the  resources  on  which  the  civilization  of  North  Europe  de- 
pends and  those  which  made  the  ancient  civilizations  of  the  Sotith. 
The  emigrants  from  South  Europe  find  here  a  possible  diet  like 
that  of  their  home  countries,  and  in  its  use  they  evoke  qualities- 
in  our  soil  that  lay  dormant  as  long  as  the  Northern  races  were  fed 
from  it. 

In  addition  to  these  home  possibiUties  the  nearness  and  aecess- 


226  HISTORY  OF  ECONOMIC  INSTITUTIONS 

ibility  of  the  semi-tropical  regions,  of  the  West  Indies  and  Central 
America,  make  many  new  foodstuffs  available  and  in  quantities 
practically  unlimited.  Measured  in  food,  these  regions  can  support 
as  great  a  population  as  can  the  United  States,  and  cost  is  less  than 
that  of  the  home  supply.  We  need  only  a  fruit  and  a  vegetable-loving 
population  to  utihze  these  new  food  materials,  and  it  is  at  hand  in  the 
emigrants  from  Southern  and  Central  Europe,  who  already  have 
habits  and  traditions  favorable  to  a  vegetable  diet.  Surely,  then, 
their  influence  will  cause  a  break  in  Anglo-American  traditions  and 
a  nearer  approach  of  the  American  diet  to  the  possibilities  of  Ameri- 
can conditions. 

This  food  supply  could  not  be  made  available  nor  could  the 
absorption  and  assimilation  of  Southern  races  take  place  without 
the  recent  cheapening  of  the  cost  of  transportation.  Even  delicate 
fruits  can  be  carried  halfway  round  the  world  at  a  reasonable  cost, 
and  with  ice  and  cold  storage  they  can  be  evenly  distributed  through- 
out the  year.  The  new  diet  can  therefore  have  a  freshness  and 
variety  superior  to  any  before  available. 

Coincident  with  this  improvement  in  food  and  transportation 
have  come  social  betterments  that  have  lengthened  life  and  made 
people  more  healthy.  Great  scourges  like  the  medieval  plagues 
are  no  longer  possible,  and  fevers  are  so  well  under  control  that 
they  have  ceased  to  be  grievous  afflictions.  A  normal  length  of  life 
is  for  the  first  time  possible  to  the  working  population;  and  when 
traditions  of  hygiene  and  right  living  have  developed  among  them, 
suffering  from  ill  health  will  be  a  negligible  quantity. 

To  attain  all  these  advantages,  a  rapid  increase  of  capital  is  neces- 
sary; and  fortunately  the  growth  of  the  saving  instinct  has  kept  pace 
with  other  improvements.  A  slight  change  in  the  rate  of  interest 
calls  forth  capital  enough  for  our  great  enterprises.  There  is  as 
little  limit  to  its  growth  as  there  is  to  our  other  resources.  When 
it  is  freely  used  by  healthy,  well-fed  men,  civilization  enters  a  stage 
distinct  from  any  of  its  past  forms. 

Food,  health,  capital,  and  mobiUty  of  men  and  goods  are  the 
four  essentials  to  progress.  All  of  them  are  now  abundantly  supplied 
and  capable  of  indefinite  increase.  Must  not  this  be  the  basis  of  a 
great  social  transformation,  changing  our  institutions,  habits,  and 
traditions  until  they  establish  a  social  adjustment  as  complete  as  the 
present  economic  situation  permits?  If  there  was  a  break  in  tradi- 
tions, institutions,  and  ideals  when  civilization  moved  from  South- 
em  to  Northern  Europe,  a  still  greater  crisis  is  before  us  when  Ameri- 
can civihzation  matches  American  possibilities.  History  repeats 
itself  when  economic  conditions  remain  static,  but  the  crude  appli- 
cation of  its  maxims  aggravates  evils  when  economic  transformations 
are  in  progress. 


PRESENT   PROBLEMS  227 

The  picture  I  have  drawn  of  economic  changes  will  not  be  com- 
plete without  a  third  illustration  of  the  hmits  of  social  prediction. 
Progress  having  hitherto  been  on  race  hnes,  tradition  emphasizes 
the  idea  of  race  supremacy.  Sharp  distinctions  have  been  drawn 
between  nations  and  their  habitats;  and  one's  own  kindred  are 
assumed  to  be  right,  while  strangers  and  enemies  are  wrong.  The 
mountaineer  is  pronounced  superior  to  the  plainsman,  the  country- 
man to  the  urban  dweller,  and  the  men  of  cold  regions  to  those  of 
hot  climates.  Buckle's  contrast  between  the  emotional  East  and 
the  intellectual  West  is  a  Western  tradition  without  geographic 
truth.  Just  as  baseless  is  the  dictum  that  political  stability  is  impos- 
sible south  of  the  frost-line. 

It  is  also  claimed  that  civilization  must  be  Teuton  or  Anglo- 
American  in  racial  quality,  and  that  its  environment  is  a  narrow 
strip  of  the  temperate  zone  in  North  Europe  and  America.  But 
in  fact  the  barriers  to  the  expansion  of  civilization  on  which  these 
traditions  rest  have  been  swept  aside.  More  than  ever  civilization 
is  economic,  and  far  more  extensive  than  before  are  the  geographic 
bases  of  material  prosperity.  The  essentials  of  progress — security, 
food,  health,  capital,  and  mobiUty  of  men,  of  goods,  and  of  thought 
—  are  now  found  in  many  regions  outside  the  wheat-belt  of  the  north 
temperate  zone,  and  other  races  than  the  Germanic  possess  the 
combination  of  essentials  and  benefit  by  it.  The  expansion  of  civil- 
ization to  new  places  and  races  has  begun,  and  will  not  end  until 
the  level  of  Southern  and  Eastern  Ufe  has  been  raised  to  that  of  the 
North  and  West.  Cuba  and  Porto  Rico  have  to-day  better  condi- 
tions than  Virginia  had  two  centuries  ago,  and  in  Japan  is  a  happier 
combination  of  essentials  than  could  have  been  found  in  Elizabethan 
England.  Surely  if  England  and  Virginia  could  make  men  under 
their*  conditions,  Japan  and  Cuba  can  likewise  attain  the  level  of 
our  present  civiUzation. 

Great  as  is  the  good  that  flows  from  the  bettering  of  economic 
conditions,  a  still  greater  springs  from  race  assimilation  and  the 
blending  of  traditions  that  succeeds  economic  contacts.  Society  is 
perpetuated  through  its  traditions  rather  than  through  its  heredity. 
Mobility  of  goods  is  less  necessary  to  a  general  advance  than  is  mobil- 
ity of  thought.  By  contact  we  shall  raise  our  own  ideals  and  gain 
as  much  as  the  Eastern  and  Southern  races  will.  Religion,  morality, 
political  institutions,  public  law,  and  literature  will  all  be  revivified^ 
lifted,  and  freshly  idealized. 

The  intellectual  and  national  awakening  of  the  races  of  Southern 
and  Eastern  Europe  and  of  Japan  shows  the  presence  of  a  leaven 
that  will  transform  their  static  traditions  into  dynamic  forces  more 
vivid  than  those  of  the  Anglo-American.  And  the  moral  awakening 
in  England  and  America  which  demands  fair  play  and  justice  for 


228  HISTORY   OF   ECONOMIC  INSTITUTIONS 

men  of  other  races  and  lands  is  an  index  of  a  broadening  and  elevating 
influence  that  wall  delocalize  Anglo-American  traditions  and  make 
us  truly  cosmopolitan.  Such  interruptions  and  transformations 
of  tradition  narrow  the  realm  of  social  predictions  as  strictly  as  do 
the  modifications  of  economic  conditions. 

The  present  crisis  demands  a  knowledge  of  the  transformation 
in  tradition  when  breaches  occur  between  it  and  the  economic  situa- 
tions in  which  it  arose.  But  we  cannot  safely  go  into  an  unknown 
future  with  a  mere  knowledge  of  present  economic  conditions.  Nor 
can  we  safely  follow  the  traditions  of  the  past  formulated  as  the 
basis  of  historical  and  social  prediction.  We  must  study  the  past 
through  the  present  and  the  present  through  the  past.  This  is 
economic  interpretation,  and  it  is  a  vital  present  need. 


BIBLIOGRAPHY  OF   DEPARTMENT  OF   HISTORY 

ANCIENT  HISTORY 

GENERAL 
DuNCKER,  M.,  Geschichte  dea  Alterthums. 
Lenormant,  F.,  Histoire  Ancienne  de  TOrient. 
Mahapfy,  J.  P.,  Prolegomena  to  Ancient  History. 
Maspero,  G.  C.  C,  Histoire  Ancienne  des  Peuples  de  I'Orient. 

Dawn  of  Civilization. 

Struggle  of  the  Nations. 

Passing  of  the  Empires. 
Meyer,  E.,  Geschichte  des  Alterthums. 
Rawlinson,  G.,  Five  Great  Monarchies. 

Sixth  Great  Oriental  Monarchy,  Parthia. 
Seventh  Great  Oriental  Monarchy,  New  Persian  Empire. 
ScHRADER,  O.,  Sprachvergleichung  und  Urgeschichte. 
Seignobos,  C.,  Les  Anciena  Peuples  de  I'Orient. 
Welzhofer,  H.,  Allgemeine  Geschichte  des  Altertums. 

BABYLONIA  AND  ASSYRIA 

HoMMEL,  F.,  Geschichte  Babyloniens  und  Assyriens. 
Oppert,  J.,  Histoire  des  Empires  de  Chald^e  et  d'Assyrie. 
TiELE,  C.  P.,  Babylonisch-Assyrische  Geschichte. 

ARABIA 

Flugel,  G.,  Geschichte  der  Araber. 

Kremer,  a.,  Culturgeschichte  des  Orients  unter  den  Chalifen. 

MuiR,  Sir  W.,  Annals  of  the  Early  Caliphate. 

Life  of  Mahomet. 

Rise  and  Decline  of  Islam. 
Sedillot,  L.  p.  E.  a.,  Histoire  G^n^rale  des  Arabes. 

CHINA  AND  JAPAN 

Adams,  F.  O.,  History  of  Japan. 

Bastian,  a..  Die  Volker  des  Ostlichen  Asien. 

Boulger,  D.  C,  History  of  China. 

Griffis,  W.  E.,  The  Mikado's  Empire. 

Kauffer,  J.  E.  R.,  Geschichte  von  Ost- Asien. 

Koch,  W.,  Japan:  Geschichte  nach  Japanischen  Quellen. 

Metchnikoff,  L.,  L'Empire  Japonais. 

Rathgen,  K.,  Japans  Volkswirtschaft  und  Staatshaushalt. 

Rein,  J.,  Japan  nach  Reisen  und  Studien. 

Williams,  S.  W.,  The  Middle  Kingdom. 

EGYPT 
Brtjgsch,  H.,  Geschichte  Aegyptens  unter  den  Pharaonen. 
Budge,  E.  A.  W.,  History  of  Egypt. 
Mahaffy,  J.  P.,  Empire  of  the  Ptolemies. 
Petrie,  W.  M.  F.,  History  of  Egypt. 
Wiedemann,  A.,  Aegyptische  Geschichte. 

*  For  universal  histories,  see  under  Modern  History. 


230  DEPARTMENT  OF  HISTORY 

GREECE 
Abbott,  E.,  History  of  Greece. 
Beloch,  J.,  Griechische  Geschichte. 
Bury,  J.  B.,  History  of  Greece  to  death  of  Alexander. 
BusoLT,  G.,  Griechische  Geschichte. 
CuRTius,  E.,  Griechisclie  Geschichte. 
Droysen,  J.  G.,  Geschichte  des  Hellenismus. 
DuRUY,  v.,  L'Histoire  des  Grecs. 
Freeman,  E.  A.,  History  of  Federal  Govermnent. 
FusTEL  ds  CouLANGES,  La  Cit6  Antique. 
Gregorovius,  F.,  Geschichte  der  Stadt  Athen. 
Grote,  G.,  History  of  Greece. 
Holm,  A.,  Griechische  Geschichte. 
Lloyd,  W.  W.,  Age  of  Pericles. 
Mahaffy,  J.  P.,  Greek  World  under  Roman  Sway. 

Problems  in  Greek  History. 

Progress  of  Hellenism  in  Alexander's  Empire. 

Survey  of  Greek  Civilization. 
MuLLER,  I.  VON,  Handbuch  der  Klassischen  Altertumswissenschaft. 
NiESE,  N.,  Geschichte  der  Griechischen  und  Makedonischen  Staaten 
ScHOMANN,  G.  F.,  Die  Verfassungsgeschichte  Athen's. 
TsouNTAS,  C,  and  Manatt,  J.  I.,  The  Mycenaean  Age. 

INDL^ 
Elliot,  Sir  H.  M.,  History  of  India. 

Hunter,  Sir  W.  W.,  Indian  Empire:  its  Peoples,  History,  and  Products 
Lefmann,  S.,  Geschichte  des  Alten  Indiens. 
Mill,  J.,  History  of  British  India. 
Wheeler,  J.  T.,  History  of  India. 

JEWS 
EwALD,  H.,  Geschichte  des  Volkes  Israel. 
Gratz,  H.,  Geschichte  der  Juden. 
Kittel,  R.,  Geschichte  der  Hebrfter. 
Reinach,  T.,  Histoire  des  Isra^htes. 
Renan,  E.,  Histoire  du  Peuple  d' Israel. 

MONGOLS,  PERSIA,  AND  PHOENICIA 
Howorth,  H.  H.,  History  of  the  Mongols. 
GoBiNEAU,  J.  A.  de,  Histoire  des  Perses. 
Justi,  F.,  Geschichte  des  Alten  Persiens. 
Pietschmann,  R.,  Geschichte  der  Phonizier. 
Rawlinson,  G.,  History  of  Phoenicia. 

ROME 
Arnold,  W.  T.,  Roman  System  of  Provincial  Administration. 
Bury,  J.  B.,  History  of  the  Later  Roman  Empire. 
DuRUY,  v.,  Histoire  des  Romains. 
Freeman,  E.  A.,  History  of  Sicily. 

Friedlander,  L.,  Darstellungen  aus  der  Sittengeschichte  Roms. 
Gibbon,  E.,  History  of  the  Decline  and  FaU  of  the  Roman  Empire. 
HoDGKiN,  T.,  Italy  and  her  Invaders. 
Ihne,  W.,  Romische  Geschichte. 
KuHN,  E.,  Der  Stadtische  imd  Biirgerliche  Verfassung  des  Romischen  Reichs. 


BIBLIOGRAPHY  231 

Long,  G.,  Decline  of  the  Roman  Republic. 

Madvig,  J.  N.,  Verfassung  und  Verwaltung  des  Romischen  Staates. 

Marquardt,  K.  J.,  and  Mommsen,  T.,  Handbuch  der  Romischen  Alterthiimer. 

Merivale,  C,  History  of  the  Romans  under  the  Empire. 

Mommsen,  T.,  Romische  Geschichte. 

Provinces  of  the  Roman  Empire. 

Romische  Forschungen. 
NiEBUHR,  B.  G.,  Romische  Geschichte. 
Schiller,  H.,  Geschichte  der  Romischen  Kaiserzeit. 
ScHWEGLER,  A.,  Romische  Geschichte. 
Thierry,  A.,  Tableau  de  I'Empire  Romain. 
WiLLEMS,  P.,  Le  Droit  Pubhc  Romain. 

Le  S^nat  de  la  R^publique  Romaine. 

MEDIEVAL  HISTORY » 

Adams,  G.  B.,  Civilization  during  the  Middle  Ages. 

AssMANN,  W.,  Geschichte  des  Mittelalters. 

Bryce,  J.,  Holy  Roman  Empire. 

BuRCKHARDT,  J.,  Die  Zeit  Constantins  des  Grossen. 

Dahn,  F.,  Urgeschichte  der  Germanischen  und  Romanischen  Volker. 

Delarc,  O.,  Saint  Gr^goire  VII  et  la  R^forme  de  I'Eglise  au  XI  ^  siecle. 

DuRUY,  v.,  Histoire  du  Moyen  Age. 

Emerton,  E.,  Mediaeval  Europe,  814-1300. 

Fisher,  H.  A.  L.,  The  Medieval  Empire. 

Freeman,  E.  A.,  Historical  Geography  of  Europe. 

Geffcken,  F.  H.,  Staat  und  Kirche. 

Gfr5rer,  a.  F.,  Pabst  Gregorius  VII  und  sein  Zeitalter. 

Gregorovius,  F.,  Geschichte  der  Stadt  Rom  im  Mittelalter. 

GuizoT,  F.  P.  G.,  Histoire  des  Origines  du  Gouvernement  representatif  en  Europe. 

Hallam,  H.,  View  of  the  State  of  Europe  during  the  Middle  Ages. 

HiMLY,  A.,  Histoire  de  la  Formation  Territoriale  des  Etats  de  I'Europe  Centrale. 

KiNGSLEY,  C.,  The  Roman  and  the  Teuton. 

Kttglbr,  B.,  Geschichte  der  KfeuzBtige. 

MiCHAUD,  J.  F.,  Histoire  des  Croisades. 

MiLMAN,  H.  H.,  History  of  Latin  Christianity. 

Montalembert,  C,  Les  Moines  d'Occident. 

Nibhues,  B.,  Geschichte  des  Verhaltnisses  Zwischen  Kaiserthum  und  Papstthum 

im  Mittelalter. 
Pallman,  R.,  Geschichte  der  Volkerwanderung. 
Pplugk-Harttung,  J.  v.,  Geschichte  des  Mittelalters. 
Prutz,  H.,  Kulturgeschichte  der  Kreuzziige. 
Savigny,  F.  C,  Geschichte  dee  Romischen  Rechts  im  Mittelalter. 
Schultze,  v.,  Geschichte    des  Untergangs  des  Griechisch-Romischen  Heiden- 

tums. 
Secretan,  E.,  Essai  sur  la  F6odalit6. 
Stubbs,  W.,  Study  of  Mediaeval  and  Modern  History. 
Sybel,  H.  von,  History  and  Literature  of  the  Crusades. 
Wietersheim,  E.  von,  Geschichte  der  Volkerwanderung. 
Zeller,  J.,  Entretiens  sur  I'Histoire  du  Moyen  Age. 

'  For  history  of  individual  countries  see  under  Modern  History  of  Europe. 


232  DEPARTMENT  OF  HISTORY 

MODERN  HISTORY 

(including    some    universal  histories  of  which  individual  volumes  ask 

GIVEN   under   special   COUNTRIES) 

Alison,  Sir  A.,  History  of  Europe  from  1789  to  1815. 

History  of  Europe  from  1815  to  1852. 
Andrews,  C.  M.,  Historical  Development  of  Modem  Europe. 
Annual  Register. 

BuLLE,  C,  Geschichte  der  Neuesten  Zeit. 
Cambridge  Modern  History. 
Creighton,  M.,  History  of  the  Papacy. 
Dyer,  T.  H.,  History  of  Modem  Europe. 
Fisher,  G.  P.,  The  Reformation. 
Flathe,  T.,  and  others.     Allgemeine  Weltgeschichte. 
Fyffe,  C.  a.,  History  of  Modem  Europe. 
Gervinus,  G.  G.,  Geschichte  des  19ten  Jahrhunderts. 
GiNDELEY,  A.,  Geschichte  des  Dreissigjahrigen  Krieges. 
Hausser,  L.,  Geschichte  des  Zeitalters  der  Reformation,  1517-1648. 
Heeren,  a.  H.  L.,  and  others.    Geschichte  der  Europaischen  Staaten 
Helmolt,  H.  F.,  ed.,  Weltgeschichte. 

Lavisse,  E.,  and  Rambaud,  A.  N,,  Histoire  Generale  du  IV  "  Sifecle  k  nos  Jours. 
Lowell,  A.  L.,  Grovemments  and  Parties  in  Continental  Europe. 
May,  Sir  T.  E.,  Democracy  in  Europe. 
MuLLER,  W.,  ed.,  Politische  Geschichte  der  Gegenwart. 

Politische  Gteschichte  der  Neuesten  Zeit. 
NoORDEN,  C.  VON,  Europaische  Geschichte  im  Achtzehnten  Jahrhundert. 
Oncken,  W.,  ed.,  Allgemeine  Geschichte  in  Einzeldarstellungen. 
Pastor,  L.,  Geschichte  der  Papste. 
Ranke,  L.  von,  Sammtliche  Werke. 

Weltgeschichte . 
Raumer,  F.  von,  Brief e  aus  Paris  zur  Erlauterung  der  Geschichte  des  16ten 
und  17ten  Jahrhunderts. 
Geschichte  Euro  pas  seit  dem  Ende  des  15ten  Jahrhimderts. 
Schlosser,  F.  C,  Geschichte  des  18ten  Jahrhimderts  und  des  IQten  bis  zum 

Sturz  des  Franzosischen  Kaiserreichs. 
Schulthess,  H.,  ed.,  Europaischer  Geschichtskalender. 
Seignobos,  C,  Histoire  Politique  de  I'Europe  Contemporaine. 
Staatengeschichte  der  Neue  ten  Zeit. 
Stern,  A.,  Geschichte  Europas,  1815-1871. 
Weber,  G.,  Allgemeine  Weltgeschichte. 
Williams,  H.  S.,  ed.,  Historian's  History  of  the  World. 

ENGLAND  AND  SCOTLAND 

Ashley,  W.  J.,  Introduction  to  EngUsh  Economic  History  and  Theory. 
Brewer,  J.  S.,  Reign  of  Henry  VIII. 
Brown,  P.  H.,  History  of  Scotland. 
Burton,  J.  H.,  History  of  Scotland. 

History  of  the  Reign  of  Queen  Anne. 
Freeman,  E.  A.,  History  of  the  Norman  Conquest. 

Reign  of  William  Rufus. 
Gairdner,  J.,  History  of  the  Life  and  Reign  of  Richard  the  Third. 
Gardiner,  S.  R.,  History  of  England,  1603-1642. 

History  of  the  Great  Civil  War,  1642-1649. 

History  of  the  Commonwealth  and  Protectorate,  1649-1656. 


BIBLIOGRAPHY  233 

Gneist,  R,,  Englische  Verfassungsgeschichte. 

Geschichte  und  Heutige  Gestalt  der  Englischen  Kommunalverfassung 
oder  des  Selfgovemment. 
Green,  J.  R.,  Conquest  of  England. 

Making  of  England. 

History  of  the  English  People. 
Hallam,  H.,  Constitutional  History  of  England. 
Hume,  D.,  History  of  England. 
James,  W.,  Naval  History  of  Great  Britain. 
Kemble,  J.  M.,  Saxons  in  England. 
Lang,  A.,  History  of  Scotland. 

Lappenberg,  J.  M.,  Pauli,  R.,  and  Brosch,  M.,  Geschichte  von  England. 
Lecky,  W.  E.  H.,  History  of  England  in  the  Eighteenth  Century. 
LiNGARD,  J.,  History  of  England. 
Longman,  W.,  Life  and  Times  of  Edward  III. 
Macaulay,  T.  B.,  History  of  England. 
McCarthy,  J.,  History  of  Our  Own  Times. 
MACKINNON,  J.,  History  of  Edward  the  Third. 
May,  Sir  T.  E.,  Constitutional  History  of  England. 
MoLESwoRTH,  W.  N.,  History  of  England,  1830-1874. 
NoRGATE,  K.,  England  under  the  Angevin  Kings. 

John  Lackland. 
Paul,  H.  W.,  History  of  Modem  England. 

Pearson,  C.  H.,  History  of  England  during  the  Early  and  Middle  Ages. 
Ramsay,  Sir  J.  H.,  The  Foundations  of  England. 
Angevin  Empire. 
Lancaster  and  York. 
Scott,  Sir  S.  D.,  The  British  Army. 
Seebohm,  F.,  EngUsh  Village  Community. 
Skene,  W.  F.,  Celtic  Scotland. 

Stanhope,  P.  H.,  History  of  England  comprising  the  Reign  of  Queen  Anne  untU 
the  Peace  of  Utrecht. 
History  of  England  from  Peace  of  Utrecht  to  Peace  of  Versailles. 
Stubbs,  W.,  Constitutional  History  of  England. 
Todd,  A.,  Parliamentary  Government  in  England. 
Traill,  H.  D.,  and  Mann,  J.  S.,  Social  England. 
ViNOGRADOFF,  P.,  Villainage  in  England. 

Walpole,  Sir  S.,  History  of  England  from  the  Conclusion  of  the  Great  War  in  1815. 
Wylie,  J.  H.,  History  of  England  under  Henry  IV. 

FRANCE 
Adams,  C.  K.,  Democracy  and  Monarchy  in  France. 
Baird,  H.  M.,  Rise  of  the  Huguenots  of  France. 

Huguenots  and  Henry  of  Navarre. 

Huguenots  and  the  Revocation  of  the  Edict  of  Nantes. 
Barante,  a.  G.  p.  de,  Histoire  des  Dues  de  Bourgogne. 
Blanc,  L.,  Histoire  de  la  Revolution  Franpaise. 
Bodley,  J.  E.  C,  France. 

BoNNELL,  H.  E.,  Die  Anfange  des  Karolingischen  Hauses. 
BoRDiER,  H.  L.,  and  Charton,  E.,  Histoire  de  France. 
Carlyle,  T.,  The  French  Revolution. 

Coubertin,  p.  de,  L'Evolution  Francaise  sous  la  Troisieme  R^publique. 
Crowe,  E.  E.,  History  of  France. 
Dareste  de  la  Chavanne,  C,  Histoire  de  France. 


234  DEPARTMENT  OF  HISTORY 

Delord,  T.,  Histoire  Illustr^e  du  Second  Empire. 

DuvERGiER    DE    Hauranne,  P.,  Histoire  du  Gouvernement  Parlementaire  en 

France,  1814^1848. 
Flach,  J.,  Les  Origines  de  I'Ancienne  France. 

FusTEL  DE  CouLANGES,  Histoire  des  Institutions  Politiques  de  I'Ancienne  France. 
Glasson,  E.,  Histoire  du  Droit  et  des  Institutions  de  la  France. 
GuizoT,  F.  P.  G.,  Histoire  de  France. 
Hanotaxjx,  G.,  Histoire  de  la  France  Contemporaine. 
HiLLEBRAND,  K.,  GescMchte  Frankreichs,  1830-1871. 
JoBEZ,  A.,  La  France  sous  Louis  XV. 

Kirk,  J.  F.,  History  of  Charles  the  Bold,  Duke  of  Burgundy. 
KiTCHiN,  G.  W.,  History  of  France. 
Lamartine,  a.  de,  Histoire  de  la  Restauration. 
Lanfrey,  p.,  Histoire  de  Napoleon  ler. 
Lavisse,  E.,  Histoire  de  France. 
Loebell,  J.  W.,  Gregor  von  Toius  vmd  seine  Zeit. 
Luchaire,  a.,  Histoire  des  Institutions  Monarchiques  de  la  France  sous  les 

Premiers  Cap^tiens. 
Mahan,  a.  T.,  Influence  of  Sea  Power  upon  the  French  Revolution  and  Empire, 

1793-1812. 
Martin,  H.,  Histoire  de  France. 
MiCHELET,  J.,  Histoire  de  France. 

Histoire  de  la  Revolution  Francaise. 
Palgrave,  Sir  F.,  History  of  Normandy  and  of  England. 
Perkins,  J.  B.,  France  under  Mazarin,  1610-1660. 
France  under  the  Regency,  1661-1723. 
France  under  Louis  XV,  1723-1774. 
PicoT,  G.,  Histoire  des  Etats-G^n^raux. 
PoiRSON,  A.,  Histoire  du  Regne  de  Henri  IV. 
Rambaud,  a.,  Histoire  de  la  Civilisation  Fran9aise. 

Histoire  de  la  Civilisation  Contemporaine  en  France. 
RiCHTER,  G.,  Annalen  des  Frankischen  Reichs. 
SiMONDE  DE  Sismgndi,  J.  C.  L.,  Histoire  des  Fran9aLs. 
Sloane,  W.  M.,  Life  of  Napoleon  Bonaparte. 
SoREL,  A.,  L'Europe  et  la  Revolution  Franpaise. 
Stephens,  H.  M.,  History  of  the  French  Revolution. 
Sybel,  H.  von,  Geschichte  der  Revolutionzeit,  1789-1800. 
Taine,  H.  a.,  Les  Origines  de  la  France  Contemporaine. 
Thierry,  Ambdeb,  Histoire  des  Gaulois. 
Thierry,  Augustin,  Essai  sur  I'Histoire  de  la  Formation  et  des  Progres  du 

Tiers  Etat. 
Theirs,  A.,  Histoire  de  la  Revolution  Francaise.  , 

Histoire  du  Consulat  et  de  I'Empire. 
Thureau-Dangin,  p.,  Histoire  de  la  Monarchie  de  Juillet. 
Viel-Castel,  L.  de,  Histoire  de  la  Restauration. 

Viollet,  p.,  Histoire  des  Institutions  Politiques  et  Administratives  de  la  France. 
Waxlon,  H.  a.,  St.  Louis  et  son  Temps. 

GERMANY  AND  AUSTRIA 

Armstrong,  E.,  Emperor  Charles  V. 
Arnold,  W.,  Deutsche  Geschichte. 
Baumgarten,  H.,  Geschichte  Karls  V. 
Carlyle,  T.,  History  of  Friedrich  II  of  Prussia. 


BIBLIOGRAPHY  235 

CosEL,  E.  VON,  Geschichte  des  Preussischen  Staates  und  Volkes  iinter  den  Hohen- 

zollem'schen  Fiirsten. 
CoxE,  W.,  History  of  the  House  of  Austria. 
Dahn,  F.,  Die  Konige  der  Germanen. 
Droysen,  J.  G.,  Geschichte  der  Preussischen  Politik. 
Eberty,  F.,  Geschichte  des  Preussischen  Staats. 
Gebhardt,  B.,  Handbuch  der  Deutschen  Geschichte. 

Gerdes,  H.,  Geschichte  des  Deutschen  Volkes  und  seiner  Kultur  im  Mittelalter. 
GiESEBRECHT,  W.,  Geschichte  der  Deutschen  Kaizerzeit. 
Hausser,  L.,  Deutsche  Geschichte  vom  Tode  Friedrichs  des  Grossen  bis  zur 

Griindung  des  Deutschen  Bundes. 
Hegel,  K.,  Stadte  und  Gilden  der  Germanischen  Volker. 
Henderson,  E.  F.,  History  of  Germany  In  the  Middle  Ages. 

Short  History  of  Germany. 
Henne-am-Rhyn,  O.,  Kulturgeschichte  des  Deutschen  Volkes. 
Jahrbucher  des  Deutschen  Reiches. 

Janssen,  J.,  Geschichte  des  Deutschen  Volkes  seit  dem  Ausgang  des  Mittelalters. 
Kaufmann,  G.,  Deutsche  Geschichte  bis  auf  Karl  den  Grossen. 
Krones  von  Marchland,  F.  X.,  Handbuch  der  Geschichte  Osterreichs. 
Lamprecht,  K.,  Deutsche  Geschichte. 
Leger,  L.,  Histoire  de  I'Autriche-Hongrie. 
Lindner,  T.,  Geschichte  des  Deutschen  Reiches,  vom  Ends  des  14ten  Jahrhund- 

erts  bis  zur  Reformation. 
LoHER,  F.,  Kulturgeschichte  der  Deutschen  im  Mittelalter. 
Mailath,  J.,  Geschichte  des  Ostreichischen  Kaiserstaats. 
Maurer,  G.  L.  von,  Geschichte  des  Markenverfassung  in  Deutschland. 
Geschichte  der  Dorfverfassimg  in  Deutschland. 
Geschichte  der  Stadteverfassung  in  Deutschland. 
Menzel,  W.,  Geschichte  der  Deutschen  bis  auf  die  Neuesten  Tage. 
NiTzscH,  K.  W.,  Geschichte  des  Deutschen  Volkes. 
OzANAM,  A.  F.,  Les  Germains  avant  le  Christianisme. 
Raumer,  F.  von,  Geschichte  der  Hohenstaufen  und  ihrer  Zeit. 
Robertson,  W.,  History  of  Charles  V. 
Sayous,  E.,  Histoire  G6n6rale  des  Hongrois. 
Schaefer,  a.,  Geschichte  des  Siebenjahrigen  Kreigs. 
Seeley,  J.  R.,  Life  and  Times  of  Stein. 
SoHM,  R.,  Die  Altdeutsche  Reichs  und  Gerichtsverfassung. 
Springer,  A.,  Geschichte  Osterreichs  seit  dem  Wiener  Frieden,  1809. 
Stirling-Maxwell,  Sir  W.,  Don  John  of  Austria. 
Stobbe,  O.,  Geschichte  der  Deutschen  Rechtsquellen. 
SuGENHEiM,  S.,  Geschichte  des  Deutschen  Volkes  und  seiner  Kultur. 
Sybel,  H.  von,  Die  Begriindung  des  Deutschen  Reiches. 
Treitschke,  H.  von,  Deutsche  Geschichte  im  19ten  Jahrhimdert. 
Tuttle,  H.,  History  of  Prussia. 
Waitz,  G.,  Deutsche  Verfassungsgeschichte. 
Zeller,  J.,  Histoire  d'Allemagne. 
Zopfl,  H.,  Deutsche  Rechtsgeschichte. 

ITALY 
Botta,  C.  G.  G.,  Storia  d'  Italia. 

Burckhardt,  J.,  Die  Cultur  der  Renaissance  in  Italien. 
Cantxj,  C,  Storia  degli  Italiani. 

Daru,  P.  A.  N.  B.,  Histoire  de  la  R^publique  de  Venise. 
Faraglia,  N.  F.,  II  Comune  nell'  Italia  Meridionale,  1100-1806. 


236  DEPARTMENT  OF  HISTORY 

Galluzzi,  J.  R.,  Istoria  del  Granducato  di  Toscana. 

Hazlitt,  W.  C,  History  of  the  Venetian  Republic. 

HoDGKiN,  T.,  Italy  and  her  Invaders. 

Leo,  H.,  Geschichte  der  Italienischen  Staaten. 

Martinengo-Cesaresco,  pi,  Storia  della  Liberazione  d'  ItaUa,  1815-1870. 

Perrens,  F.  T.,  Histoire  de  Florence. 

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Etats-Unis  d'Amerique. 


238  DEPARTMENT  OF  HISTORY 

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Beginnings  of  New  England. 

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American  Revolution. 

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Rhodes,  J.  F.,  History  of  the  United  States  from  the  Compromise  of  1850. 
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KiNGSPORD,  W.,  History  of  Canada. 

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Arrangoiz,  F.  de,  M^jico  desde  1808  hasta  1867. 
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History  of  the  Conquest  of  Peru. 
ToRRENTE,  M.,  Historia  de  la  Revolucion  Hispano-Americana. 
Zamacois,  N.  de,  Historia  de  M^jico. 


DEPARTMENT  IV  — HISTORY  OF  LAW 


DEPARTMENT  IV  — HISTORY  OF  LAW 


{HaU  5,  September  20,  11.15  a.  m.) 

Chairman:  Honorable  David  J.  Brewer,  Associate  Justice  of  the  Supreme 

Court  of  the  United  States. 
Speakers:  Honorable  Emlin  McClain,  Judge  of  the  Supreme  Court  of  Iowa, 

Iowa  City. 
Professor  Nathan  Abbott,  Leland  Stanford  Jr.  University. 


HISTORY  OF   LAW 

BY    EMLIN   m'CLAIN 


[Emlin  McClain,  Associate  Justice  of  Supreme  Court  of  Iowa.  b.  Salem,  Ohio, 
November  26,  1851.  State  Universitv  of  Iowa,  B.Ph.  1871;  B.A.  ibid.  1872; 
LL.B.  ibid.  1873;  K.U.  ibid.  1882;  LL.D.  ibid.  1891;  LL.D.  Findley  College, 
Ohio.  Professor  in  Law  Department,  State  University  of  Iowa,  1881-1901; 
Chancellor,  1890-1901;  Member  Code  Commission  of  Iowa;  Judge  Supreme 
Court  of  Iowa,  1901.  Member  American  Bar  Association,  1889,  Iowa  Bar  As- 
sociation, American  Historical  Society,  International  Law  Association.  Author 
of  treatises  on  Criminal  Law  and  Constitutional  Law;  compiler  of  Selected  Cases 
on  Carriers,  and  on  Constitviional  Law;  also  of  Iowa  Digest,  and  Annotated  Code 
of  Iowa.] 

Any  attempt  to  outline  a  history  of  law  with  the  view  of  presenting 
a  connected  account  of  its  development  as  a  branch  of  human 
knowledge  must  be  preceded  consciously  or  unconsciously   Differ- 
by  an  elimination  of  allied  or  analogous  matter,  and  by    ^nd  Mhn- 
a  differentiation  of  law  from  other  sciences.    For  the  sub-    ination. 
ject  has  intimate  relation  with  every  phase  of  man's  social  activity 
and  intellectual  development;    with  religion,  ethics,  and  morality; 
with  institutions,  government,  and  legislation;  with  race  character- 
istics and  their  evolution;  and  its  records  form  an  important  part  of 
the  material  with  which  anthropology  and  ethnology  are  concerned. 
Such  elimination  and  differentiation  are  necessary  not  only  in  order 
to  determine  the  subject-matter  and  arrive  at  a  definition  of  law, 
but  also  in  order  to  secure  a  starting-point  from  which  its  develop- 
ment may  be  traced.     Among  many  primitive  peoples  law  is  not 
clearly  distinguished  from  religion,  and  its  administra-    Religion 
tion  is  found  to  be  in  the  hands  of  the  priests.    Not  only    ^^^  Law. 
are  legal  proceedings  accompanied  by  religious  ceremonies,  but  the 
exercise  of  the  judicial  power  is  conceived  to  be  within  the  scope 
of  the  sacerdotal  functions.    In  Rome,  for  instance,  the  interpret- 
ation of  the  law  was  a  function  of  the  Sacerdotal  College,  first  as  a 
fact,  and  later  perhaps  only  as  an  empty  fiction  down  to  the  end 


242  •  HISTORY  OF   LAW 

of  the  Republic,  that  is,  until  about  the  beginning  of  the  Christian 
era,  when  Augustus  Csesar  added  to  his  various  other  offices  that 
of  Pontifex  Maximus,  and  thus  became  the  supreme  law  inter- 
preter as  well  as  the  supreme  law-maker.  It  clearly  appears  that 
the  judicial  functions  of  the  priestly  office  had  not  fallen  into  com- 
plete disuse  during  the  third  century  b.  c,  when  the  first  plebeian 
who  attained  to  the  position  of  Pontifex  Maximus  announced  his 
readiness  to  answer  legal  questions  to  all  instead  of  confining  his 
exposition  of  the  law  to  such  actual  cases  as  might  be  brought 
before  him. 

The  primitive  relations  between  religious  ceremonial  observances 
and  legal  proceedings  cannot  be  regarded,  however,  as  purely  acci- 
Morality  dental,  or  as  resulting  alone  from  the  superior  education 
and  Law.  and  learning  of  the  priests.  There  is,  undoubtedly,  some 
deep-seated  connection  between  the  religious  and  legal  significance 
of  words  which  are  common  to  religion  and  law,  represented  in  our 
language  by  such  words  as  "right"  and  "just"  and  "lawful." 
There  was  the  same  suggestive  relation  between  "fas"  and  "nefas" 
on  the  one  hand  and  "jus"  and  "lex"  on  the  other  among  the 
Romans.  And  in  perhaps  all  modern  languages  there  is  the  ambigu- 
ity growing  out  of  the  use  of  words  of  the  same  import,  as  "  recht " 
among  the  Germans,  and  "  droit  "  among  the  French.  This  connec- 
tion is  hardly  to  be  explained  as  growing  out  of  the  resort  to  the 
superstitious  or  religious  nature  of  men  for  the  purpose  of  securing 
their  action  in  legal  affairs  according  to  some  other  rule  or  guidance 
than  that  of  self-interest,  prejudice,  or  partisanship.  Such  assistance 
the  law  has  in  all  ages  sought  in  religion.  Performance  of  contractual 
obligations  was  secured  among  primitive  people  by  giving  to  them 
a  religious  sanction.  In  the  Middle  Ages  compurgation  was  a  recog- 
nized method  of  arriving  at  the  truth  in  the  determination  of  legal 
disputes,  and  in  modem  times  we  seek  to  induce  witnesses  to  tell 
the  truth  by  the  administration  of  oaths,  and  in  the  same  method 
we  endeavor  to  influence  jurors  and  judges  to  perform  their  duties 
uprightly  and  without  fear  or  favor. 

Ethics  and  morals  remain  associated  with  law  in  modem  con- 
ceptions. Although  it  may  be  conceded  that  the  original  function 
Ethics  re-  ^^  *^^  state  in  regulating  human  actions  which  affect 
cognized  the  relations  of  individuals  to  each  other  is  to  secure  the 
by  Law.  prevalence  of  social  order,  nevertheless  the  general  obli- 
gation to  so  administer  the  law  as  that  on  the  whole  moral  right  and 
justice  shall  prevail  is  a  conception  too  deeply  seated  to  be  ignored. 
Nor  has  the  general  recognition  of  this  obligation  ceased  to  have 
legal  significance.  It  is  a  popular  belief  that  law  was  at  first  sim- 
ply morality,  and  that  through  undue  attention  given  to  forms  and 
technicalities  of  procedure  the  two  have  become  widely  separated 


HISTORY  OF   LAW  243 

and  inconsistent  in  their  aims.  The  historical  fact  is  that  technicahty 
and  formahty  have  been  marked  characteristics  of  the  earliest  admin- 
istration of  law  among  all  peoples,  and  that  the  tendency  has  been 
universal  so  to  modify  and  adjust  the  early  technical  procedure  as 
that  right  and  justice  in  amoral  sense  shall  be  done.  Not  only  through 
legislation,  but  also  by  means  of  fiction  and  the  introduction  of 
equitable  principles,  law  has  been  brought  into  a  closer  consonance 
with  morality.  Never  before  have  bad  faith  and  the  resort  to  tech- 
nical legal  rules  for  the  purpose  of  effecting  that  which  is  morally 
wrong  been  so  strongly  discountenanced  in  legal  tribunals  them- 
selves ;  and  never  before  have  such  tribunals  been  more  zealous  so 
to  apply  legal  rules  as  to  secure  results  which  accord  with  ethical 
standards. 

Notwithstanding  the  underlying  connection  in  human  thought 
between  rights  and  duties  of  which  law  takes  cognizance  and  those 
which  are  recognized  in  ethics  and  morality,  it  is  evi-  gut 
dent,  nevertheless,  that  until  there  is  a  clear  and  well-  distinct, 
established  distinction  between  law  and  morality  there  can  be  no 
ascertainable  science  of  jurisprudence.  Until  the  recognized  aim  in 
the  administration  of  law  is  to  apply  rules  which  are  sufficient  to 
afford  a  reason  for  their  application  without  regard  to  the  ethical 
result  in  any  particular  case,  there  cannot  be  a  science  of  law. 

It  is  also  apparent  that  there  must  be  a  differentiation  between 
administrative  and  legislative  functions  on  the  one  hand  and  judi- 
cial functions  on  the  other  before  there  is  a  science  of    ka^„- 

Aanunis- 

law  as  distinct  from  a  knowledge  of  the  law.  The  sov-  tration 
ereign  or  body  exercising  the  power  of  sovereignty  may  *  "^^ 
still  retain  and  exercise  the  power  to  do  right  in  particular  cases 
and  administer  justice,  but  until  controversies  between  individuals 
which  are  adjudicated  under  the  sovereign  authority  are  decided 
habitually  if  not  universally  by  applying  established  and  related 
rules  of  action  and  obligation,  there  can  be  no  science  of  law. 

The  necessity  for  the  interference  of  the  state  in  private  contro- 
versies arises  probably  from  the  obligation  of  the  state  to  maintain 
peace  and  order,  and  perhaps  the  very  first  occasion  for  Public 
the  exercise  of  that  function  would  be  in  the  suppression  Wrongs, 
of  the  turmoil  and  the  insecurity  existing  where  the  individual  is 
left  to  his  own  powers  and  resources,  or  that  aid  which  his  kindred 
may  feel  bound  by  custom  to  afford  him  in  the  protection  of  his 
supposed  rights.  The  blood-feuds  and  the  violence  incident  to  a 
resort  to  self-help  could  not  be  suppressed  until  some  substitute 
was  afforded.  This  is,  perhaps,  a  sufficient  explanation  of  the 
characteristic  provisions  not  only  in  the  laws  of  early  Teutonic 
races,  but  also  in  the  early  laws  of  other  races,  as  to  the  amount 
to  be  paid  as  weregeld,  or  under  some  similar  name  b}'  the  wrong- 


244  HISTORY   OF   LAW 

doer  or  those  responsible  for  his  conduct  to  the  injured  party  or  his 
relatives  for  acts  of  personal  violence.  The  conception  of  a  public 
wrong  which  the  state  for  its  own  interest  should  punish  was,  how- 
ever, not  lacking  in  the  earliest  social  organizations,  and  the  modern 
enlargement  of  this  conception  of  the  duty  of  the  individual  to  the 
public  as  a  whole  represented  by  the  state  is  an  illustration  of  the 
ever  increasing  complexity  of  social  relations.  But  it  is  evident,  how- 
ever, that  until  the  governing  power,  whatever  it  may  be,  in  discharg- 
ing the  duty  of  determining  controversies  between  individuals,  and 
redressing  injuries  to  the  public,  has  come  to  recognize  a  general 
obligation  to  proceed  in  accordance  with  established  rules,  and  not 
simply  in  the  exercise  of  an  indefinite  power  to  govern,  there  can 
be  no  science  of  law. 

A  distinction  between  the  power  to  make  laws  and  the  power 
to  modify  or  add  to  the  law  is  also  essential  to  a  science  of  law. 
Legislation  The  English  school  of  analytical  jurists,  which  is  perhaps 
and  Law.  the  only  distinctively  English  school  of  jurisprudence, 
seems  to  have  ignored  the  difference  between  the  aggregate  body  of 
the  laws  and  the  law.  So  long  as  the  law  is  conceived  of  theoretically 
as  the  aggregate  of  the  commands  of  a  sovereign  power,  no  necessity 
becomes  apparent  for  the  recognition  of  any  such  difference.  But 
the  practical  distinction  between  the  customary  law  and  the  law 
composed  of  conscious  legislation  has  been  appreciated  under  every 
legal  system  at  an  early  period  in  its  development.  The  science  of 
law  as  distinct  from  the  sciences  of  politics  and  of  government  can, 
however,  have  no  existence  until  the  law  is  recognized  as  something 
quite  essentially  different  from  the  aggregate  body  of  legislation. 
The  exercise  of  legislative  power  in  the  process  of  modifying  and 
adding  to  the  law  has  other  motives  and  proceeds  along  other  lines 
than  those  which  are  prominent  and  controlling  in  political  and 
governmental  science. 

On  the  other  hand  it  is  clear  that  the  mere  existence  of  a  body 
of  customary  law  does  not  connote  a  science  of  law.  While  the 
Customary  administration  of  justice  remains  in  the  hands  of  local 
Law.  magistrates  or  bodies  administering  the  customary  law 

without  further  supervision  than  that  resulting  from  the  right  of 
appeal  to  a  central  power,  which  interferes  only  to  prevent  injustice 
in  particular  cases  and  without  applying  any  system  of  rules  and 
principles  to  which  the  inferior  and  local  judiciary  is  required  to 
conform,  there  is  no  system  of  law.  The  Anglo-Saxon  period  in  the 
development  of  the  English  law  furnished  an  apt  example,  and  it 
was  not  until  the  king's  justices  exercised  the  customary  power  of 
administering  a  system  of  law  which  was  regarded  as  the  king's 
law  that  there  came  to  be  a  scientific  jurisprudence. 

Another  suggestion  seems  pertinent  here.     The  history  of  law 


HISTORY  OF   LAW  245 

is  a  wholly  different  thing  from  the  history  of  a  rule  or  principle  of 
law,  or  of  a  particular  legal  institution.  It  is  always  very  interesting, 
and  may  often  be  profitable,  to  trace  backward  the  history    ^  a 

of  a  rule  of  law  or  a  legal  institution  to  its  original  con-  Rules  of 
ception,  or  to  trace  downward  the  development  of  the  ^^^' 
earliest  conception  formed  of  any  rule  or  institution  to  its  modern 
status.  In  whichever  method  such  investigation  is  pursued  there  is 
great  danger  that  we  may  mistake  mere  analogies  due  to  similarity 
of  social  conditions  or  race  characteristics  for  the  derivative  relation 
of  cause  and  effect.  Even  an  analogy,  however,  if  carefully  ascer- 
tained, may  prove  to  be  interesting  and  instructive.  But  the  history 
of  law  does  not  consist  of  the  history  of  the  various  rules  and  institu- 
tions with  which  jurisprudence  is  concerned. 

Out  of  the  earliest  conception  of  science  as  the  aggregate  of  human 
knowledge,  and  of  philosophy  as  the  reason  or  explanation  of  the 
relation  of  facts  to  each  other,  were  differentiated  branches  Science  of 
of  science,  one  of  which  was  a  knowledge  of  the  law,  and  the  Law. 
branches  of  philosophy,  one  of  which  was  the  philosophy  of  the  law; 
and  the  art  of  administering  the  law  was  involved  in  this  science 
and  this  philosophy.  Legal  facts  taken  into  consideration  in  the 
administration  of  the  law,  generalized  and  arranged  according  to 
some  system  of  supposed  relation  and  explained  by  some  assumed 
reason  for  their  existence,  became  as  thus  arranged  and  explained 
a  branch  of  human  knowledge  which  could  be  designated  by  the 
term  jurisprudence.  That  term  might  be  applied  to  any  aggregation 
of  legal  facts  having  some  relation  to  each  other;  for  instance,  the 
facts  of  one  branch  of  the  law,  such  as  the  law  of  persons  and  of 
property  rights,  the  law  of  admiralty  or  the  law  of  the  relations  of 
nations  to  each  other;  or  it  might  be  applied  to  a  knowledge  of  all 
the  law  recognized  within  a  state  or  nation  or  race;  or  it  might  be 
applied  to  the  law  generally  conceived  of  as  including  all  ascertainable 
facts  found  to  exist  affecting  the  relations  of  human  beings  to  each 
other  anywhere  so  far  as  they  are  affected  by  or  taken  account  of 
in  the  administration  of  the  law,  arranged  according  to  some  system 
and  explained  by  some  philosophy.  The  history  of  the  development 
of  jurisprudence  regarded  as  a  branch  of  general  human  knowledge 
and  not  related  to  the  facts  of  a  particular  branch  of  the  law,  or  a 
particular  system  of  law,  may  properly  be  spoken  of  as  the  history  of 
law,  or  the  history  of  jurisprudence.  If  jurisprudence  be  described  in 
the  brief  phrase  of  Dr.  Holland  as  "the  formal  science  of  positive 
law,"  then  the  history  of  jurisprudence  is  the  history  of  the  develops 
ment  of  that  science.  Until  this  science  was  so  far  differentiated 
from  other  sciences  that  it  could  be  conceived  of  as  a  branch  of 
knowledge  dealing  with  a  group  of  facts  having  an  independent 
classification,  and  reasoned  about  as  having  an  independent  existence, 


246  HISTORY  OF   LAW 

there  could  be  no  distinct  history.  This  differentiation  was  only 
sufficiently  completed  to  permit  of  a  definite  use  of  the  term  "  science 
of  law"  when  the  relation  of  principles  to  each  other  was  determined 
by  a  body  of  rules  independent  of,  although  not  necessarily  antago- 
nistic to,  those  recognized  by  religion,  ethics,  and  morals,  enumerated 
and  enunciated  not  arbitrarily  by  some  law-maker,  but  explained 
by  some  rational  process  and  developed  according  to  some  system 
of  principles  and  administered  by  some  authority  recognizing  in 
theory,  if  not  in  practice,  the  obligation  to  make  the  result  of  such 
administration  conform  to  rules  and  principles  thus  recognized. 

In  order  to  fix  the  starting-point  of  the  history  of  law  as  a  distinct 
science,  it  is  necessary  to  ascertain  the  first  existence  of  such  a  branch 
Starting-  of  human  knowledge.  The  unequal  advancement  of  the 
Hi^ory^  human  race  accounts  for  the  development  of  an  organized 
of  Law.  social  system  in  which  systematic  jurisprudence  is  recog- 
nized at  an  earlier  stage  in  one  group  than  in  another;  and  by  elim- 
inating from  consideration  those  groups  in  which  there  can  be  said 
as  yet  to  be  no  science  of  jurisprudence  in  a  distinctive  sense  as  the 
term  is  now  employed,  and  noticing  that  those  groups  in  which  such 
science  has  been  achieved  are  so  related  to  each  other  that  the 
jurisprudence  of  the  one  can  be  assumed  as  having  had  some  influence 
on  the  others,  it  will  be  found  that  a  history  can  be  written  with 
a  somewhat  definite  starting-point,  and  dealing  with  a  somewhat 
consecutive  and  homogeneous  development. 

There  can  be  little  difficulty  in  eliminating  from  the  field  of  our 
present  view  all  of  the  so-called  ancient  races  save  the  Romans. 
Beein  ^^^  ^^^  ^^  ^^^  Hindus  as  illustrated  by  the  Code  of 

with  the  Manu,  the  Hebrew  Scriptures,  and  the  Koran  are  so 
Romans.  essentially  religious  that  they  must  be  excluded  from 
consideration  in  a  discussion  of  the  history  of  the  law.  The  Baby- 
lonians and  the  Egyptians  appear  to  have  had  no  distinctive  judicial 
system  of  administering  the  law.  Even  the  Greeks,  with  all  their 
advancement  in  art  and  philosophy,  had  no  system  of  jurisprudence. 
With  them  the  science  of  law  had  not  yet  been  separated  from  that 
of  politics  and  government.  But  among  the  Romans  the  law  became 
a  branch  of  human  knowledge,  having  for  its  scope  recognized  facts, 
a  reasonably  well-ascertained  arrangement,  and  a  somewhat  distinct 
philosophy.  And  such  a  conception  of  the  law  thus  originating  among 
them  has  not  been  lost  sight  of  in  the  civilized  world  down  to  the 
present  time.  It  may  have  been  independently  achieved  among 
other  Western  peoples,  but  the  development  of  the  Roman  civiliz- 
ation reached  the  whole  Western  world  during  the  formative  period, 
and  no  other  system  can  be  discussed  without  considering  the  in- 
fluence of  Roman  civilization  upon  it.  It  is  not  assumed,  on  the 
other  hand;  that  the  Roman  civiUzation  was  spontaneous,  but  what- 


HISTORY  OF   LAW  247 

ever  that  people  did  derive  from  other  sources  came  to  them  before 
there  was  a  science  of  jurisprudence.  If  then  we  can  ascertain  the 
beginning  of  such  a  science  among  the  Romans,  we  have  a  reason- 
ably convenient  and  satisfactory  starting-point  for  a  history  of  law. 

It  seems  to  be  generally  assumed  that  the  brief  Roman  code 
known  as  the  Twelve  Tables,  promulgated  b.  c.  452,  451  (303,  304 
A.  u.  c),  constitutes  the  source  and  beginning  of  juris-    Twelve 
prudence  at  Rome,  and  is  therefore  the  first  monument  in    Tables, 
the  history  of  law;  but  this  point  is  of  sufficient  importance  to  justify 
some  deliberation. 

Such  a  code  as  that  of  the  Twelve  Tables  was  not  a  new  invention 
of  the  Romans.  A  complete  Babylonian  code  promulgated  by 
Hammurabi,  the  sixth  king  of  the  first  dynasty  of  Babylon- 
Babylon,  who  reigned  about  b.  c.  2250,  and  is  identified  ian  Code, 
with  the  Amraphel  mentioned  in  the  book  of  Genesis  in  the  Hebrew 
Scriptures,  has  been  recovered  and  translated,  which  indicates  that  at 
that  time  the  Babylonians  had  reached  a  stage  of  development  in 
legal  notions  not  greatly  different  from  that  which  existed  among  the 
Romans  at  the  time  the  Twelve  Tables  were  promulgated.  In  two 
respects,  however,  the  primitive  Roman  code  indicates  conceptions 
more  advanced  than  those  entertained  by  the  Babylon-    Roman 

ians,  the  Egyptians,  or  the  Hindus.    In  the  first  place  it    Conception 

"•^  '■  ^  more 

does  not  purport  to  emanate  from  a  divine  source,  and  in  advanced, 
the  second  place  it  recognizes  the  existence  of  the  rudiments  of  a  dis- 
tinctly judicial  procedure.  In  the  latter  respect  it  is  more  advanced 
than  the  so-called  laws  of  Solon,  the  Athenian  ruler  in  the  seventh 
century  b.  c,  from  which  some  of  its  provisions  are  supposed  to 
have  been  borrowed.  It  may  be  suggested  as  an  interesting  fact  that 
the  Teutonic  codes,  so  called,  which  came  into  form  during  the 
Middle  Ages  and  represented  the  social  system  which  had  previously 
existed  among  these  tribes,  are  not  very  different  in  their  subject- 
matter  from  the  Babylonian,  Egyptian,  and  Hindu  codes.  They 
picture  a  period  of  social  development  when  the  right  of  retaliation 
is  being  superseded  by  a  system  of  money  compensation  to  be  paid 
according  to  a  fixed  scale  for  injuries  to  person  and  property.  There 
are  traces  of  this  notion  found  in  the  Roman  law  of  the  time  of  the 
Twelve  Tables,  but  that  code  suggests  a  social  development  which 
had  gone  at  least  one  step  further  toward  modem  conceptions  of 
personal  and  property  rights. 

The   Twelve   Tables  did   not   indicate,   however,   the  existence 
among  the  Romans  of  some  of  the  essential  features  of    Twelve 
a   scientific   system  of  law.    Here  was  a  collection  of   p^ov^r 
laws,  but  not  a  body  of  law.    Here  was  the  conception    Starting- 
of  rules  of  conduct  and  obligation  laid  down  on  the    H-^ori*"^ 
authority  of  the  state,  not  purporting  to  be  derived  from    of  Law. 


248  HISTORY   OF  LAW 

a  divine  source,  but  no  recognition  of  any  connection  between 
the  written  command  and  a  preexisting  body  of  customary  law  to 
which  the  written  law  was  added.  There  is  lacking  also  any  con- 
ception of  law  as  the  basis  for  subsequent  development  .by  inter- 
pretation and  exposition. 

Within  the  following  three  centuries,  however,  or  at  least  before 
the  end  of  the  Roman  Republic,  all  of  these  elements  of  a  system 
Beginning  of  law  had  been  added.  The  law  became  the  subject  of 
of  System  methodical  discussion  by  learned  men  who  made  it  a  spe- 
among  cial  study.     It  was  administered  by  praetors  who  an- 

Romans.  nounced  in  their  annual  edicts  rules  and  principles  not 
directly  derived  from  the  written  law,  and  which  they  would  observe 
in  their  administration  of  justice  during  their  respective  terms  of 
office.  The  praetor  peregrinus  was  determining  rights  and  obligations 
of  those  not  subject  to  the  civil  law  which  governed  Roman  citizens, 
assuming  the  existence  of  customs  and  usages  binding  upon  them 
without  any  express  enactment,  and  a  method  of  trial  had  been 
developed  in  which  the  rules  of  law  applicable  to  the  case  were 
expounded  and  a  judicial  determination  of  the  facts  was  secured. 
Whether  we  accept  as  satisfactory  evidence  of  the  existence  of 
scientific  jurisprudence  the  republication  from  year  to  year  by  the 
praetors  in  their  annual  edicts  of  the  substantial  portions  of  the 
edicts  of  their  predecessors,  thus  establishing  the  existence  of  what 
may  not  improperly  be  termed  judge-made  law,  or  their  propounding 
by  formulae  to  the  judex  of  the  question  of  fact  to  be  ascertained  in 
order  to  determine  the  application  in  the  particular  case  of  rules  of 
law  previously  announced  by  a  jurisconsult,  or  the  compilation  by 
Sextus  Aelius  Paetus,  Consul  b.  c.  197,  of  his  Tripartita  embodying 
the  Twelve  Tables,  the  interpretation  thereof  by  the  Sacerdotal  Col- 
lege, and  the  forms  of  action  appropriate  for  seeking  legal  remedies, 
as  the  final  evidence  of  the  existence  and  recognition  of  a  system 
of  law,  we  shall  bring  the  starting-point  of  such  a  system  within 
the  two  centuries  before  the  Christian  era,  and  probably  within  the 
earlier  of  these  two  centuries. 

It  is  not  within  the  province  of  the  present  discussion  to  elaborate 
the  details  of  Roman  jurisprudence,  nor  to  comment  upon  the 
Two  Char-  characteristics  of  property  and  personal  rights  which 
acteristics.  were  recognized.  But  something  ought  to  be  said  of  cer- 
tain legal  conceptions  peculiar  to  the  Romans  which  have  profoundly 
influenced  the  historical  development  of  law  since  their  time.  Of 
these,  two  may  be  selected  as  of  special  importance:  first,  that  the 
Roman  law  was  applicable  only  to  Roman  citizens,  and  second,  that 
there  was  a  system  of  law  described  by  them  as  the  law  of  nature 
furnishing  a  philosophical  explanation  for  all  human  laws.  The  two 
conceptions  are  related  apparently  only  in  this,  that  the  recognition 


HISTORY   OF   LAW  249 

of  the  principle  of  personality  rather  than  that  of  territoriality  of 
law  led  to  the  discovery  or  investigation  of  the  theory  of  natural 
law. 

By  reason  of  the  conception  of  law  as  personal  and  not  territorial, 
it  was  necessary  for  the  praetor  peregrinus  to  seek  some  other 
system  of  law  than  that  applicable  to  Roman  citizens  on  Person- 
which  to  base  his  decisions  in  controversies  between  for-  ^^ty. 
eigners,  that  is,  persons  who  were  not  Roman  citizens.  For  it  was 
only  a  citizen  who  could  enjoy  the  property  rights,  sustain  the  family 
relations,  enter  into  the  contractual  obligations,  or  avail  himself 
of  the  judicial  procedure  recognized  by  the  law  of  Rome.  This 
theory  of  the  personality  of  the  law  cut  a  large  figure  during  the 
medieval  age,  and  served  as  a  marked  distinction  between  the 
Roman  system  and  the  feudal  system.  The  distinction  may  be  of 
no  great  significance,  for  the  rule  of  territoriality  is  now  fully  recog- 
nized in  all  civilized  countries,  not  only  as  to  the  relations  of  individ- 
uals to  each  other  and  to  the  state  under  any  particular  system  of 
law,  but  also  as  to  the  relations  to  each  other  of  foreign  nations 
and  their  subjects,  but  it  will  furnish  an  explanation  for  many 
difficulties  and  peculiarities  developed  in  the  study  of  the  early 
Teutonic  systems. 

,  The  notion  that  the  praetor  peregrinus  must  administer  some 
other  system  of  law  than  the  ci\dl  law  of  Rome  led  to  the  assumption 
of  the  existence  of  a  body  of  rules  and  principles  which  jug  Gen- 
could  be  derived  from  the  laws  of  other  peoples,  that  is,  the  tium. 
jus  gentium.  The  first  conception  was  the  purely  practical  one  that 
the  controversies  between  subjects  of  other  governments  tempo- 
rarily residing  or  transacting  business  in  Rome  ought  to  be  decided 
according  to  the  laws  of  the  governments  to  which  they  were  sub- 
ject. Such  laws  would  be  their  laws  wherever  they  might  be, 
just  as  the  Roman  laws  were  the  laws  of  the  Roman  citizen.  But 
it  would  be  impossible  in  many  cases  between  foreigners  to  find 
any  law  applicable  to  both,  and  the  praetor  was  driven  to  administer 
in  such  cases  a  kind  of  general  law,  in  fact,  a  system  of  equity;  and 
he  did  it  on  the  fictitious  assumption,  especially  with  reference  to 
commercial  transactions,  that  there  was  an  established  system  of  laws 
or  principles  common  to  all  nations.  Nowhere  is  the  capacity  of  the 
Roman  jurist  to  generalize  without  regard  to  facts  and  to  build 
up  a  system  on  mere  philosophical  theory  more  aptly  illustrated 
than  in  the  assumption  of  a  jus  gentium.  No  praetor  or  jurisconsult 
or  philosophical  writer  seems  to  have  pretended  to  discover  as  a  matter 
of  fact  the  existence  of  any  such  system  of  principles,  nor  indeed 
to  have  made  any  investigation  for  the  purpose  of  determining 
whether  such  a  system  existed  among  or  could  be  derived  from 
the  laws  of  different  nations.    That  the  praetor  peregrinus,  in  fact. 


250  HISTORY  OF  LAW 

administered  pure  equity  cannot  be  doubted.  The  anomaly  of  the 
situation  was  in  his  pretending  that  he  was  discovering  and  adminis- 
tering jus  gentium. 

From  the  conception  of  a  jus  gentium  it  was  easy  to  make  the 
philosophical  deduction  of  a  natural  law,  that  is,  a  collection  of 
Natural  "^^s  and  principles  which  did  prevail  among  men  living 
Law.  together  in  a  natural  state  free  from  the  technical  re- 

straints of  the  Roman  law.  And  again,  it  was  an  easy  step  to  assume 
for  the  natural  law  some  moral  obligation,  and  that  all  laws,  even  the 
laws  of  Rome,  ought  to  conform  to  it  as  nearly  as  possible. 

In  this  development  of  the  theoretical  conception  of  a  law  of 
nature  from  the  practical  assumption  of  a  jus  gentium,  the  Roman 
Stoic Philo-  jurist  seems  to  have  been  guided  or  at  least  assisted 
sophy.  by  the  prevalent  Stoic  philosophy  which  originated  in 

Greece  with  Zeno  about  b.  c.  308,  and  was  the  favorite  philosophy 
of  men  of  learning  and  culture  prior  to  the  general  acceptance  of 
the  Christian  religion.  The  fundamental  conception  of  the  Stoic 
seems  to  have  been  that  underlying  all  facts  and  occurrences  is 
some  reasonable  explanation,  and  that  by  accommodating  himself  to 
the  natural  order  of  things  the  human  being  best  adjusts  himself 
to  his  surroundings,  and  most  easily  obtains  the  desirable  condition 
of  contentment  and  satisfaction.  That  there  should  be  some  such 
reasonable  order  and  connection  at  the  foundation  of  social  phe- 
nomena, serving  as  a  basis  for  jurisprudence  so  far  as  discoverable, 
is  an  assumption  which  does  not  appear  to  us  in  modern  times  as 
extravagant;  and  while  the  Stoic  philosophy  as  a  matter  of  fact 
explains  nothing,  it  does  represent  a  view  which  great  numbers  of 
intelligent  people  still  take  as  to  their  relations  with  nature  and 
their  fellows. 

When  the  theory  of  a  natural  law  as  a  basis  for  a  system  of  juris- 
prudence passed  from  the  phase  of  explanation  to  that  of  obligations, 
Conse-  it  started  upon  a  career  that  has  been  accompanied 

quences  of  ^ith  many  illogical  and  harmful  views.  To  say  that  the 
tion  of  Na-  positive  law  ought  to  conform  to  some  so-called  natural 
turalLaw.  standard  is  revolutionary,  for  the  simple  reason  that 
there  is  no  means  of  ascertaining  any  such  standard.  What  is 
naturally  right  must  necessarily  vary  with  the  conceptions  enter- 
tained by  each  school  or  faction  or  individual.  And  to  say  that  a  law 
or  principle  of  law  is  wrong  and  should  not  be  obeyed  or  recognized 
because  it  does  not  conform  to  some  such  assumed  standard  is  to 
introduce  the  same  kind  of  confusion  between  law  and  morality 
which  existed  before  there  was  any  differentiation  of  jurisprudence 
from  religion.  As  a  philosophical  assumption  the  law  of  nature  is 
harmless,  for  any  school  or  collection  of  individuals  may  agree  as  they 
see  fit  upon  an  explanation  of  social  phenomena,  though  it  is  a  little 


HISTORY  OF   LAW  251 

difficult  to  perceive  now  the  benefit  even  from  a  philosophical  stand- 
point of  an  assumption  for  which  no  foundation  of  fact  can  be 
ascertained.  But  to  make  such  an  assumption  the  basis  of  criticism 
of  or  resistance  to  positive  law  is  to  introduce  disorder  into  the 
social  system,  a  result  wholly  inconsistent  with  the  spirit  of  the 
Stoic  philosophy. 

Nevertheless,  it  is  in  the  assumption  that  the  civil  law  as  it  was 
finally  developed  at  Rome  is  founded  upon  and  embodies  the  natural 
law,  that  superior  excellence  has  been  claimed  for  it  by   Natural 
enthusiastic  students  and  advocates.      There  are  sen-    Lawas- 
tentious     and    catching    phrases   in    the    Institutes    of   R^an  ^ 
Justinian  with  reference  to  law  and  justice  borrowed.    Jurists, 
of  course,  from  early  writers,  which  have  commended  the  civil  law 
to  those  who  like  to  philosophize  about  jurisprudence.   It  seems  not 
to  have  seriously  occurred  to  the  advocates  of  the  superiority  of  the 
civil  law  system  that  it  should  be  judged  by  its  practical  results 
rather  than  by  its  theories,  and  that  the  notions  of  right  and  justice 
which  are  expressed  in  general  phrases  by  the  expounders  of  the 
civil  law  are  so  far  common  human  property  that  they  may  be 
found  tersely  and  cogently  set  forth  by  Hammurabi  or  Confucius 
or  Moses  or  Mohammed. 

The  conception  of  a  jus  gentium  has  been  useful  in  the  develop- 
ment of  the  principles  to  be  applied  in  private  international  law, 
and  the  adaptabiUty  of  the  assumed  natural  law  as  Uses  of  Jus 
furnishing  fundamental  principles  for  the  exposition  of  Gentixun. 
public  international  law  has  led  to  a  general  acceptance  in  inter- 
national law,  public  and  private,  of  the  civil  law  as  containing  the 
law  of  nature.  But  it  is  doubtful  if  any  substantially  valuable  por- 
tions of  the  recognized  international  law  would  have  been  wanting 
had  there  never  been  a  civil  law  system  or  an  assumed  system  of 
natural  law.  Public  international  law  has  been  developed  like 
any  other  system  out  of  usage,  and  consists  of  the  rules  and  prin- 
ciples in  accordance  with  which  nations  maintain  relations  to  each 
other,  just  as  customary  law  is  composed  of  like  rules  and  principles 
in  accordance  with  which  individuals  are  related  to  each  other  in 
society.  It  is  the  general  consensus  as  to  what  such  rules  and  prin- 
ciples ought  to  be  so  far  as  it  has  been  ascertained  and  in  an  in- 
definite way  accepted. 

The  assumption  of  a  law  of  nature  has  had  its  most  potent 
influence,  however,  in  politics  rather  than  in  jurisprudence.    It  has 
furnished  arguments  and  justification  for  the  overthrow   j^atural 
of  tyrannical  and  unjust   governments,  and  has  made    Law  and 
easy  the  way  for  the  extension  and  practice  of  personal    comnact 
liberty.    Conceptions  of  natural  rights  upon  which  gov-    Theories 
ernments  should  not  infringe,  and  of  the  social  compact    "^  ' 


252  HISTORY   OF   LAW 

upon  which  governments  rest,  have  been  potent  forces  in  the  estab- 
lishing of  constitutional  limitations,  written  and  unwritten,  through- 
out the  civilized  world,  and  in  compelling  arbitrary  governments 
to  adopt  constitutional  forms  in  accordance  with  which  their  powers 
shall  be  exercised.  The  various  declarations  and  bills  of  rights  found 
in  the  constitutional  history  of  Great  Britain,  the  United  States,  and 
France  since  the  beginning  of  the  seventeenth  century  have  con- 
tained unmistakable  traces  of  the  theory  of  the  law  of  nature  as 
embodied  in  the  natural  rights  and  social  compact  assumptions. 
But  it  may  not  be  out  of  place  to  suggest  that  when  a  fact  is  estab- 
lished, a  theory  to  explain  it  may  easily  be  found,  if  not  in  one  philo- 
sophical conception,  then  in  another,  and  the  development  of  the 
conceptions  of  individual  freedom  and  that  governing  bodies  exer- 
cise only  a  limited  and  delegated  power  can  be  traced  among  the 
Anglo-Saxons  to  a  time  when  theories  of  natural  rights  and  social 
compact  were  absolutely  unknown.  It  may  be  seriously  doubted 
by  a  student  of  comparative  constitutional  law  whether  the  history 
of  governments  and  institutions  in  the  Western  world  would  have 
been  substantially  different  had  no  such  explanation  as  natural 
rights  and  the  social  compact  been  invented. 

The  Roman  civil  law  at  the  end  of  the  period  of  the  Republic 
consisted  of  legislation  of  various  kinds,  added  to  a  body  of  cus- 
Roman  tomary  law  which  had  attained  some  measure  of  recog- 

cfose^of  nition  by  embodiment  in  the  praetorian  edicts,  and 
Republic.  expositions  by  the  jurisconsults  already  speaking 
with  quasi-public  authority,  although  their  designation  as  official 
organs  of  the  state  was  not  made  until  a  later  period.  This  was  the 
golden  age  of  the  civil  law,  and  to  the  spirit  which  was  infused  into 
it  during  this  stage  of  its  development  may  be  credited  the  intel- 
lectual conquest  of  the  civilized  world  when  the  darkness  of  the 
Middle  Ages  was  dispelled  by  the  dawn  of  the  Renaissance.  But 
during  the  twelve  intervening  centuries  the  civil  law  of  Rome  cut 
a  great  figure  in  the  world's  history  as  the  result  of  the  conception, 
first  generally  entertained  during  the  Empire,  that  all  law  is  based 
directly  on  the  authority  of  a  ruler.  And  the  practical  result  of  that 
conception  was  codification. 

The  codification  of  the  Roman  law  under  the  Emperors  was  an 
important  step  in  its  history,  and  of  the  greatest  interest  in  con- 
Codifi-  nection  with  the  general  development  of  jurisprudence, 

cation.  on  account  of  the  light  which  it  throws  on  the  nature 

and  effect  of  a  like  process  in  other  systems  of  law.  But  it  is  of 
historical  significance  also  because  it  was  the  Roman  law  in  a  codi- 
fied form  which  was  extended  over  Europe  and  exercised  an  influence 
on  the  development  of  jurisprudence  among  the  Teutonic  peoples. 

The  process  of  codification  under  the  Empire  was  simple.     The 


HISTORY   OF  LAW  253 

first  necessity  impelling  to  it  was  the  practical  one  of  bringing  to- 
gether   the    formal    edicts,    decrees,  and    constitutions 
which  had  been  promulgated  as,  and  constituted  the 
body  of  positive  legislation. 

The  first  compilations  of  this  character  were  made  under  private 
authority  during  the  fourth  century,  and  are  referred  to  collectively 
as  the  Gregorian  and  Hermogenian  Codes,  But  the  first  Early 
official  compilation  was  that  of  the  Emperor  Theo-  Examples, 
dosius  II,  who  in  429  a.  d.  established  a  commission  for  the  pre- 
paration of  such  a  compilation,  although  the  work  was  not  actually 
promulgated  until  438  as  the  result  of  the  labors  of  a  new  commission. 
As  compared  with  the  subsequent  compilation  of  the  whole  law  by 
Justinian,  which  is  known  under  the  name  of  the  Corpus  Juris  Civilis, 
the  code  of  Theodosius  was  crude  and  primitive.  There  was  no 
effort  in  its  preparation  to  do  more  than  put  in  authoritative  form 
the  laws  as  distinct  from  the  law.  Nevertheless,  the  Theodosian  Code 
is  of  far  more  significance  as  affecting  the  first  impetus  toward 
systematic  jurisprudence  in  Europe  than  the  Corpus  Juris  Civilis,  for 
upon  it  were  founded  the  so-called  barbarian  codes  of  the  various 
Teutonic  tribes  who  invaded  and  appropriated  to  themselves  not 
only  the  most  of  the  territory  over  which  the  authority  of  the  Western 
Roman  Empire  had  extended,  but  also  to  a  large  measure  the 
civilization  which  had  been  developed  at  Rome. 

The  process  of  codification,  however,  was  carried  much  further. 
The  emperors  in  absorbing,  not  only  the  general  power  of  legislation, 
but  the  whole  of  the  power  of  expounding  and  adminis-  Under  the 
tering  the  law,  arrogated  to  themselves  every  function  Empire, 
of  jurisprudence.  They  consolidated  the  praetorian  edicts  into  one 
perpetual  edict  to  which  the  imperial  sanction  was  imparted,  and 
thus  combined  judge-made  law  with  written  law,  and  they  thereby 
brought  into  the  civil  law  the  results  of  the  recognition  of  the  jus 
gentium  and  the  law  of  nature  which  had  been  developed  out  of  the 
exercise  of  jurisdiction  by  the  praetors.  Roman  equity  became 
merged  into  Roman  law,  and  so  jealous  was  the  Imperial  authority 
of  any  infringement  of  its  prerogative  as  the  source  of  law  that 
exposition  was  confined  by  express  command  to  certain  designated 
jurisconsults,  who  alone  were  allowed  to  make  responsus  prudentium. 
The  impotence  of  the  sovereign  power  thus  completely  to  shackle 
the  development  of  law  by  means  of  exposition  was  illustrated  in 
this  attempt,  for  some  of  the  most  illustrious  works  of  Roman  juris- 
prudence were  written  by  those  who  never  received  the  Imperial 
authority,  and  the  labors  of  unofficial  jurists  have  been  as  fully 
accepted  in  subsequent  ages  as  constituting  a  part  of  the  Roman 
law  as  those  of  the  official  jurisconsults. 

The  culmination  of  Roman  codification  was  reached  under  Jus- 


254  HISTORY  OF    LAW 

tinian,  who  as  ruler  of  the  Eastern  Empire,  with  his  capital  at  Con- 
Justinian's  stantinople,  but  also  with  jurisdiction  over  the  Western 
Codifica-  Empire,  which  was  for  the  time  being  not  subjeet  to 
his  actual  authority,  between  the  years  a.  d.  529  and 
534  caused  to  be  prepared  his  Code  proper,  similar  in  scope  to  that 
of  Theodosius,  with,  however,  an  attempt  at  methodical  arrange- 
ment, and  also  the  Pandects  or  Digest,  a  compilation  of  the  author- 
itative expositions  of  the  law,  and  in  addition  the  Institutes,  an 
elementary  work  expounding  the  theory  and  principles  of  the  law. 
These  works  constitute  together  the  final  historical  monument  of 
the  Roman  civil  law  as  the  judicial  system  of  an  existing  govern- 
ment. They  were  prepared  by  Tribonian  and  his  associates  under 
the  Imperial  command,  but  they  embodied  the  results  of  a  develop- 
ment of  law  by  abler  and  more  original  minds. 

By  the  promulgation  of  the  Pandects  Justinian  sought  to  con- 
vert effectually  that  part  of  the  law  which  did  not  already  rest  on 
Codifica-  the  Imperial  authority  into  written  law,  and  to  exclude 
DeveloD^  the  possibility  of  further  reference  to  other  authority, 
ment.  It  was  forbidden  to  supplement  the  official  text  with 

annotations  or  explanations,  and  there  was  theoretically  no  room 
left  for  further  development,  save  as  the  Imperial  power  should 
be  formally  exercised  in  making  additions  or  amendments. 

The  theory  that  a  system  of  law  can  thus  finally  be  reduced  to 
authoritative  formal  statement  of  rules  and  principles  which  shall 
Attempt  to  be  applied  to  cases  as  they  arise  in  judicial  tribunals, 
fh^tion  wit^o^^  other  assistance  than  that  furnished  by  the 
Final.  interpretation  of  the  text  taken  as  a  whole,  has  been 

a  favorite  one  wherever  the  civil  law  system  has  been  adopted.  In 
the  present  German  Code  it  is  expressly  provided  that  "the  opinions 
of  law  professors  and  the  views  taken  by  prior  judges  shall  not  be  in 
any  way  considered  in  future  decisions";  and  in  the  Code  Napoleon 
the  judges  are  prohibited  from  pronouncing  general  views  of  law 
in  the  cases  which  are  submitted  to  them;  while  in  Austria  the  con- 
sideration of  general  principles  is  expressly  excluded  by  a  pro- 
vision prohibiting  the  application  of  the  customary  law.  In  fact, 
by  the  civil  law  theory  of  codification,  the  further  development  of 
the  law  is  taken  out  of  the  hands  of  jurists  and  placed  entirely  within 
the  domain  of  political  science.  It  is  needless  to  say  to  any  one 
familiar  with  the  actual  truths  of  modern  law  that  such  a  theory 
cannot  be  worked  out;  for  judges,  even  in  countries  where  there  is 
a  final  and  complete  codification,  must  inevitably  take  notice  of  the 
prior  decisions  of  the  courts  in  analogous  cases  and  seek  enlighten- 
ment for  the  interpretation  of  the  law  in  the  writings  of  those  learned 
men  who  have  attempted  to  expound  the  principles  and  to  illustrate 
them  by  reference  to  cases  real  or  hypothetical.    The  fundamental 


HISTORY  OF   LAW  255 

difference  in  this  respect  between  the  modern  civil  law  and  the  com- 
mon law  is  not  that  further  development  in  the  former  has  been 
rendered  impossible  while  it  continues  in  the  latter,  but  that  in  the 
latter  the  material  for  such  development  is  officially  provided  and 
its  use  distinctly  authorized,  while  in  the  former  there  is  no  recog- 
nized rule  in  accordance  with  which  such  material  may  be  preserved 
or  made  use  of  and  the  results  of  the  development  remain  obscure 
until,  after  the  lapse  of  a  long  period  of  illegitimate  change,  a  com- 
plete revision  of  the  law  and  revolution  in  the  system  of  jurispru- 
dence become  necessary. 

The  Justinian  theory  of  codification  is  more  rational  than  that 
entertained  by  Bentham  and  his  school  in  England  in  this,  that 
Justinian  sought  simply  to  embody  in  authoritative  Bentham  »s 
form  the  results  of  the  legislation,  interpretation,  and  School, 
exposition  within  the  entire  field  of  law;  that  is,  he  proposed  to  repre- 
sent in  his  compilations  the  existing  body  of  the  Roman  law;  while 
Bentham  proposed  to  substitute  for  the  body  of  the  existing  English 
law  a  system  built  up  from  his  own  individual  conceptions  of  what 
the  law  ought  to  be.  It  is  easy  to  see  that  Bentham's  theory  was 
wholly  impracticable  and  visionary,  and  that  such  codes  as  he  pro- 
posed could  not  possibly  cover  the  field  of  jurisprudence  or  be 
other  than  disastrous  in  the  practical  administration  of  the  law 
from  the  very  moment  of  their  enactment.  Such  fragmentary  codes 
as  were  drafted  by  him  are  brief  and  inadequate  condensations  of 
the  branches  of  the  law  which  he  attempted  to  cover,  with  such 
changes  as  in  his  judgment  were  thought  to  be  necessary.  Such  a  con- 
ception of  jurisprudence  as  a  system  could  have  been  entertained 
only  by  one  unfamiliar  with  it  either  as  an  art  or  a  science. 

Bentham  and  his  school  greatly  benefited  the  English  law  by 
agitation  for  reforms  which  were  needed  and  which  have  been  ac- 
complished largely  through  the  more  judicious  labors  Reforms 
of  others.  The  theory  of  law  which  he  and  his  successors  ^^qq^ 
entertained  has  not  in  the  least  affected  the  science  fication. 
of  law  in  England  or  elsewhere.  The  impetus  toward  codification 
which  has  been  so  marked  in  England  and  America  during  the  last 
century  has  resulted  in  an  improved  system  of  judicial  procedure, 
and  in  the  revision  of  the  criminal  law  so  as  to  bring  it  into  harmony 
with  modern  conditions.  It  has  also  resulted  in  reducing  to  more 
concrete  and  homogeneous  form  the  rules  and  principles  applicable 
to  some  other  branches  of  the  law  which  for  practical  utility  have 
been  rendered  more  certain  and  more  easily  ascertainable.  But 
the  practice  acts,  the  criminal  codes,  and  the  codified  laws  of  part- 
nership, sales,  and  commercial  paper  have  furnished  simply  a  new 
starting-point  for  interpretation  and  exposition.  The  spirit  and 
underlying  conceptions  of  the  law  of  England  continue  as  before. 


256  HISTORY  OF   LAW 

Intelligent  legislation  will  henceforth  be  even  more  potent  as  a  factor 
in  the  development  of  the  common  law  than  it  has  been  in  the  past, 
and  indeed  it  now  constitutes  the  most  suitable  channel  through  which 
substantial  change  may  be  effected.  But  jurisprudence  will  never 
be  merged  into  political  science,  and  the  law  as  a  whole  will  never 
be  reduced  to  conclusive  written  form  either  in  the  countries  where 
the  civil  law  has  been  accepted,  or  much  less  in  those  which  accept 
the  common  law. 

The  futility  of  any  attempt  at  final  codification  is  illustrated 
by  the  subsequent  history  of  the  Justinian  Corpus  Juris.  In  the 
Subsequent  East  it  was  unable  to  secure  full  recognition  as  an  em- 
History  of  bodiment  of  the  Roman  law,  which  had  been  in  a  some- 
Juris  of  what  unscientific  but  rather  practical  way  compiled  in 
Justinian,  i^q  so-called  Syrian  code  fifty  years  earlier,  and  which 
furnished  the  foundation  for  the  subsequent  legal  systems,  such  as 
they  were,  recognized  in  the  Levant.  Soon  after  the  death  of  Jus- 
tinian his  Corpus  Juris,  translated  into  Greek,  became  the  subject  of 
further  exposition,  which  with  additional  revision  was  embodied  in 
the  Basilica,  compiled  in  the  ninth  century  and  generally  accepted 
as  the  basis  of  the  law  throughout  those  regions  in  which  the  Greek 
branch  of  the  Christian  Church  became  predominant. 

In  the  Western  Roman  Empire  Justinian's  Corpus  Juris  was  form- 
ally promulgated,  but  for  practical  purposes  it  did  not  supersede 
Survival  of  ^^^  crude  collection  of  the  written  law  already  referred 
Theodosian  to  as  the  Theodosian  Code,  and  it  was  not  until  the 
Code.  revival  of  learning  in  the  twelfth  century  that  it  exer- 

cised any  marked  influence  on  the  jurisprudence  of  Western  Europe. 

The  recovery  of  a  comparatively  complete  manuscript  at  the 
siege  of  Amalfi  in  the  year  1335  is  supposed  to  have  inaugurated 
Revival  of  ^  new  era  in  the  history  of  law;  but  though  Blackstone's 
Study  of  ^  assumption  that  the  Corpus  Juris  was  then  rediscov- 
Corpus  6red  (a  popular  error  which  he  accepted  from  learned 

Juris.  writers  on  the  civil  law)  has  been  generally  discredited, 

it  nevertheless  remains  true  that  about  this  time  the  study  of  the 
Roman  civil  law  as  a  distinct  system  Vas  revived,  and  became  an 
important  element  in  the  advancement  of  the  jurisprudence  of  the 
Western  world,  and  that  the  Corpus  Juris  furnished  the  basis  of 
this  renewed  study. 

The  six  centuries  intervening  between  the  completion  of  final 
Roman  codification  and  the  revival  of  the  study  of  the  Roman 
Effect  of  ^^^  ^^  *^^  seats  of  learning  in  Europe  and  England 
Teutonic  were  filled  with  the  confusion  and  disorder  incident  to 
Invasions,  ^j^^  incursions  of  the  Teutonic  peoples  into  Roman 
territory,  and  no  further  development  of  jurisprudence  can  be  traced. 
But  many  events  happened  during  that  period  which  are  of  great 


HISTORY  OF   LAW  257 

significance  in  explaining  the  course  of  the  subsequent  history  of 
the  law  in  the  states  of  Northern  Europe  and  in  England. 

The  characteristic  feature  of  this  period  was  the  promulgation 
from  time  to  time  of  the  so-called  barbarian  codes.  At  the  beginning 
of  the  sixth  century  and  before  Justinian  had  even  Barbarian 
formulated  his  plans  for  the  codification  of  the  Roman  Codes, 
law,  and  within  less  than  a  century  after  the  completion  of  the 
Theodosian  Code,  the  second  Alaric  of  the  western  division  of  tlie 
Goths,  and  Theodoric,  the  great  ruler  and  leader  of  the  eastern 
division,  each  promulgated  compilations  of  laws  founded  on  the 
Code  of  Theodosius.  Theodoric 's  compilation  seems  to  have  had  no 
permanent  effect,  for  his  empire  went  to  pieces  soon  after  his  death, 
leaving  no  permanent  results  as  affecting  the  legal  history  of  the 
people  over  whom  he  ruled.  But  the  compilation  of  Alaric  under 
the  name  Breviarium  was  for  centuries  the  law-book  for  Western 
Europe.  Later  in  the  sixth  century  some  codes  were  compiled  under 
the  rulers  of  other  tribes  who  had  come  within  the  limits  of  the 
Roman  Empire,  the  most  important  of  which  were  the  codes  of  the 
Burgundians  and  the  Lombards. 

In  some  of  these  codes  it  is  expressly  indicated  that  they  were  for 
the  government  of  the  Roman  people,  that  is,  the  subjects  of  the 
Roman  Empire  whom  the  invading  barbarian  tribes  Barbarian 
had  subjected  and  were  attempting  to  govern.  The  Roman 
Goths,  for  instance,  or  the  Lombards,  did  not  look  upon  ^°^^^* 
themselves  as  accepting  the  laws  of  the  territory  into  which  they 
came;  but  on  the  contrary  they  considered  that  they  brought  their 
own  laws  with  them.  Conceiving  that  these  laws  were  applicable 
only  to  their  own  people,  their  rulers  attempted  to  make  compilations 
of  laws  based  on  those  which  they  found  in  existence  in  the  Roman 
territory  in  accordance  with  which  the  Roman  subjects  should  con- 
tinue to  be  governed.  And  for  this  purpose  they  had  resort  to  the 
Theodosian  Code,  so  that  it  is  apparent  that  the  barbaric  Roman 
codes  do  not  include  the  body  of  the  Roman  civil  law  as  represented 
by  the  Corpus  Juris,  especially  the  Pandects  or  Digest,  that  most 
important  part  composed  of  excerpts  from  the  writings  of  jurists. 

But  not  all  of  the  barbarian  codes  are  of  this  character.  A  stage 
in  the  development  of  the  Teutonic  tribes  had  been  reached  similar 
to  that  under  which  the  Twelve  Tables  were  promulgated  Teutonic 
at  Rome,  and  some  of  these  codes  are  simply  the  an-  Codes. 
nouncement  of  legislation  embodying  or  adding  to  the  customary 
law  of  the  tribe.  Even  the  barbarian  rulers  who  compiled  Roman 
codes  recognized  the  existence  of  the  customary  laws  of  their  tribes 
as  continuing  in  force  for  their  own  people,  and  there  is  little  evidence 
that  this  customary  law  was  to  any  considerable  extent  affected 
for  some  time  by  the  contact  with  the  Romans;  but  inevitably  those 


258  HISTORY   OF   LAW 

tribes  which  became  permanently  located  within  the  territory 
which  was  fully  under  the  dominion  of  the  Roman  civilization 
adopted  the  institutions,  the  language,  and  the  laws  which  they 
found,  accepting  them  gradually  as  substitutes  for  their  own.  The 
Teutonic  invasion  therefore  had  little  permanent  effect  on  the  laws 
or  institutions  of  the  peoples  of  Southern  Europe. 

But  in  Northern  Europe  the  situation  was  entirely  different. 
The  Salic  Law  which  the  Franks  brought  with  them  into  territory 
which  had  been  only  partially  subjected  to  the  Roman 
civilization  was  wholly  Teutonic  and  showed  slight,  if 
any,  traces  of  Roman  influence.  It  remained  the  law  of  France, 
substantially  unaffected  by  the  civil  law,  until  the  study  of  the 
Corpus  Juris  extended  the  knowledge  of  the  Roman  law  into  that 
region. 

In  Germany  there  was  from  the  earliest  time  of  which  we  have 
any  definite  historical  record  a  body  of  customary  law  represented 
Sachsen-  ^Y  the  Sachsenspiegel  and  Schwabenspiegel,  first  re- 
spiegel.  duced  to  written  form  in  the  thirteenth  century,  which 

remained  long  unaffected  by  the  Roman  law.  And  wholly  Teutonic 
also  in  origin  and  development  was  the  body  of  the  law  of  the  Anglo- 
Saxons,  the  first  historical  monument  of  which  may  be  said  to  be  the 
Dooms  of  Alfred. 

The  differentiation  which  took  place  between  the  development 
of  Teutonic  civilization  in  the  north  of  Europe  and  a  similar  develop- 
Anglo-  ment   in   England   must  be  largely   attributed   to   the 

Saxons.  fact  that  the  rulers  of  the  Franks  and  other  Teutonic 
tribes  were  attempting  to  extend  and  maintain  their  authority  over 
the  Romanized  people  of  Southern  Europe,  and  in  doing  so  were 
brought  into  closer  contact  with  the  Romans  than  the  Anglo-Saxons 
who  had  gone  into  England  and  there  developed  a  civihzation  free 
from  external  complications  until  it  had  reached  such  a  stage  that 
it  could  not  be  fundamentally  affected  by  them. 

The  Teutonic  codes,  if  they  may  be  designated  by  a  name  which 

is  misleading,  as  suggesting  a  stage  of  development  which  had  not 

Teutonic       Y^t  been  reached,  that  is,  the  Salic  law,  the  Sachsen- 

Codes  not  spiegel,  and  the  laws  of  the  Anglo-Saxons  are  made  up 
Part  of  ■,         ■.        f  .  .  f  1-1 

Jurispru-      largely  of  provisions  as  to  the  compensation  to  be  paid 

dence.  for  injuries  of  various  kinds  to  person  and  property. 

They  suggest  no  conception  of  systematic  jurisprudence;  but  they 
show  the  general  prevalence  throughout  Northern  Europe  and  Eng- 
land of  a  condition  of  society  which  culminated  in  the  feudal 
system.  Indeed,  they  may  with  some  propriety  be  called  the  feudal 
codes  as  distinct  from  the  Latin  codes. 

The  history  of  modern  jurisprudence  may  be  arranged  under  four 
divisions.     That  of  Eastern  Europe,  including  Russia  and  Turkey, 


HISTORY  OF   LAW  259 

in  which  the  Roman  law  as  represented  by  the  Corpus  Juris  of  Jus- 
tinian in  some  form  has  remained  the  basis  of  the  law  to    „  j 

Modern 

the  present  time,  for  even  the  Mohammedans  of  Turkey,  Jvirispru- 
although  governed  by  the  Koran,  have  found  it  necessary  <^®"*^®- 
to  accept  for  juristic  purposes  the  corrupt  system  of  Roman  law 
which  they  found  in  use  when  they  made  Constantinople  the  centre 
of  the  Turkish  Empire;  that  of  Southern  Europe,  where  the  Roman 
law  has  always  been  the  common  law  of  the  people;  that  of  Northern 
Europe,  where  the  Roman  law  has  become  the  basis  of  jurisprudence 
by  reason  of  its  introduction  through  poUtical  association  and  the 
extension  of  the  influence  of  the  Corpus  Juris  ;  and  that  of  England 
and  all  other  countries  dominated  by  the  Anglo-Saxons,  in  which 
has  been  developed  a  Teutonic  system  under  the  name  of  the  common 
law. 

The  extension  of  Anglo-Saxon  domination  and  the  peculiarities 
of  the  system  of  law  which  they  developed  in  England  and  have 
carried  with  them  to  all  parts  of  the  world  over  which  xwo  Great 
they  have  extended  their  power,  are  so  marked  that  Systems, 
the  history  of  modern  jurisprudence  may  properly  be  said  to  be  con- 
cerned with  the  conflict  between  two  rival  judicial  systems.  The 
whole  civilized  world  has  been  divided  between  the  civil  law  of 
the  Romans  and  the  common  law  of  the  Anglo-Saxons. 

The   political   circumstances   surrounding   the   attempt   of  bar- 
barian rulers  to  assume  the  garb  and  authority  of  Roman  emperors 
served  in  Northern  Europe  to  put  the  civil  law  and  the   Antagon- 
Teutonic  customary  law  into  relations  of  antagonism,    ^m  to  Civil 
In  Prussia  the  landrecht  prevailed  as  against  the  civil    Northern 
law,  while  in  France  the  civil  law  was  victorious.    But    Europe, 
the  ultimate  result  has  been  that  the  entire  scientific  study  of  law 
in  Northern  Europe  has  been  devoted  to  the  civil  law,  which  may 
properly  be  said  to  be  the  basis  of  the  systematic  jurisprudence  of 
every  European  country. 

In  England  there  have  been  suggestions  of  a  similar  contest; 
but  so  far  as  there  has  been  any  real  contest  it  has  existed  between 
the  canon  law  and  the  common  law,  the  former  being    j^^^  g^^j^ 
assumed  to  be  an  embodiment  of  the  civil  law,  although    Contest  in 
the  points  in  controversy  between  the  canonists  and  the      °*^  ^^  ' 
common  law  lawyers  did  not  relate  to  matters  having  reference 
to  the  peculiar  principles  of  the  civil  law.  The  common  law  has  been 
a  receptive  system.  There  never  was  any  contention  on  the  one  hand 
that  the  civil  law  was  of  authority  in  England,  and  consequently 
there  has  been  no  occasion  for  hostility  between  the  two  systems. 
Authors  and  judges  have  been  able  to  appropriate  the  learning  of 
the  civil  law  and  apply  its  principles  in  new  cases  for  which  they 
seem  to  furnish  a  satisfactory  solution  without  being  charged  with 


260  HISTORY  OF  LAW 

recognizing  an  alien  jurisdiction.  The  question  as  to  the  fundamental 
relations  between  the  two  systems  for  historical  purposes  comes  to 
this,  whether  the  common  law  was  developed  into  an  independent 
system  of  jurisprudence  influenced,  as  it  may  have  been  at  some 
stages  of  its  history,  by  the  learning  of  the  civil  law,  but  on  the 
whole  substantially  indigenous,  or  whether,  on  the  other  hand, 
there  was  no  systematic  jurisprudence  in  England  save  as  the  con- 
ception of  general  law,  and  the  principles  in  accordance  with  which 
a  system  was  constructed,  were  borrowed  from  civil  law  sources. 

No  citation  of  authority  is  necessary  to  support  the  proposition 
that  English  jurists  have  almost  universally  denied  any  funda- 
Common  mental  derivative  connection  between  the  common  law 
Law  not  and  the  civil  law.  They  are  united  in  the  assertion  that 
from  Civil  the  systematic  jurisprudence  in  England  has  been  de- 
Law,  veloped  from  sources  and  impulses  peculiar  to  the  English 
people.  And  the  contention  of  those  who  would  have  us  believe 
that  the  common  law  as  a  system  is  fundamentally  an  outgrowth  of 
the  civil  law  resolves  itself  into  a  claim  that  authors  such  as  Coke, 
Hale,  and  Blackstone,  who  have  expounded  the  common  law  system 
and  explained  its  development  from  Anglo-Saxon  sources  under 
impulses  peculiar  to  it,  have  been  so  blinded  by  prejudice  and  pro- 
vincialism that  they  have  failed  to  see  or  to  admit  the  truth. 

The  historical  facts  on  which  the  advocates  of  the  claim  of  the 
Historical  civil  law  to  be  the  real  foundation  for  jurisprudence 
Facts.  in  England  rest  their  case  may  be  briefly  grouped  as 

follows: 

(1)  The  Roman  law  prevailed  in  England  during  the  period  ante- 
dating the  Anglo-Saxon  invasion  while  Britain  was  a  province  of 
Roman  ^^^  Roman  Empire;  that  is,  from  a.  d.  43  to,  say,  about 

Law  in  the  beginning  of  the  fifth  century  when  the  Roman 

Bntam.  legions  were  withdrawn,  and  all  assertion  of  Roman 
power  in  Britain  was  abandoned.  It  appears  that  during  this  period 
Papinian,  who  afterwards  became  at  Rome  one  of  the  great  com- 
mentators of  the  civil  law,  administered  justice  at  York  as  pro- 
vincial praetor.  But  first  it  must  be  suggested  that  the  Corpus  Juris 
had  not  yet  been  compiled,  and  that  Roman  law  had  not  reached 
that  definite  form  which  enabled  it  at  the  close  of  the  Middle  Ages 
to  extend  itself  over  Europe  as  the  only  known  body  of  systematic 
law.  Again  it  is  to  be  remembered  that  in  the  countries  of  Northern 
Europe  which  were  at  the  same  time  under  Roman  dominion  the 
civil  law  did  not  become  established  as  the  foundation  of  jurispru- 
dence until  a  much  later  period.  And  finally  and  conclusively,  there 
is  not  the  slightest  evidence  that  the  laws  and  institutions  which 
prevailed  among  the  Britons  in  England  during  the  Roman  occupa- 
tion and  as  a  result  of  that  occupation  had  any  effect  on  the  laws 


HISTORY  OF  LAW  261 

and  institutions  of  the  Anglo-Saxon  invaders.  As  has  already  been 
pointed  out,  the  Teutonic  tribes  recognized  the  personality  as  dis- 
tinct from  the  territoriality  of  the  law,  and  preserved  for  themselves 
the  social  system  brought  from  the  fastnesses  of  Germany.  Until  a 
more  fully  developed  feudal  system  converted  the  customary  law  of 
the  people  into  the  civil  law  of  a  given  territory,  the  relations  between 
the  Anglo-Saxon  invaders  and  the  Britons  whom  they  found  in 
possession  of  the  land  was  very  different  from  that  of  the  Goths  or 
Lombards  who  settled  among  the  more  highly  civilized  people  of 
Southern  Europe.  There  is  no  evidence  that  the  Britons  themselves 
had  made  any  substantial  advancement  in  Roman  civilization.  The 
Anglo-Saxons  became  the  dominant  people,  not  only  in  military 
power  but  in  social  organization,  and  it  is  not  reasonable  to  suppose 
that  they  abandoned  their  own  institutions  and  laws  and  adopted 
those  of  a  conquered  race  no  higher  in  the  scale  of  civilization  than 
they.  What  had  the  Romanized  Britons  to  offer  which  the  invading 
Saxons  should  desire  to  adopt?  So  far  as  there  is  any  evidence,  the 
Roman  influence  remained  superficial,  and  was  confined  to  a  few 
cities  where  traces  of  Roman  occupancy,  as  distinct  from  mere 
mihtary  conquest,  are  still  to  be  found.  To  have  adopted  Roman 
institutions  would  have  involved  necessarily  the  adoption  to  a 
considerable  extent  of  the  Roman  language,  but  no  one  can  point 
out  any  substantial  traces  of  the  Roman  language  in  the  speech 
of  the  Anglo-Saxons  at  the  earliest  period  of  which  monuments  of  the 
Anglo-Saxon  speech  may  be  found.  It  is  easy  to  make  a  catalogue 
of  similarities  between  the  Anglo-Saxon  law  and  the  civil  law  as  to 
particular  and  disconnected  subjects.  But  such  analogies  may  be 
traced  between  any  two  systems  of  law.  Those  who  reason  by  means 
of  such  analogies  might  trace  our  jury  system,  for  instance,  to  the 
Mosaic  Code  or  the  jurisprudence  of  Egypt  with  as  much  assurance 
as  they  do  to  the  civil  law.  Until  some  historical  connection  can  be 
established  between  the  laws  and  institutions  of  the  Anglo-Saxons 
in  England  and  those  of  the  Romanized  Britons,  we  shall  be  justi- 
fied in  accepting  the  belief  that  the  laws  of  the  Anglo-Saxons,  such 
as  they  may  have  been,  were  of  Teutonic  and  not  Roman  origin. 

(2)  During  the  Anglo-Saxon  period,  that  is,  from  the  time  of 
the  invasion  down  to  the  time  of  the  Norman  Conquest,  the  only 
possible  Romanizing  influence  which  could  have  been  During  aq. 
brought  to  bear  on  the  laws  of  England  were  those  glo-Saxon 
resulting  from  the  introduction  of  Christianity  by  mis-  ^^^°  ' 
sionaries  from  Rome,  and  the  study  by  learned  men  of  continental 
systems  of  law.  Much  has  been  said  of  the  influence  which  bishops 
and  priests  from  Rome  might  have  exerted  on  the  law.  But  the  extent 
of  such  influence  is  a  matter  of  pure  surmise.  So  far  as  the  monu- 
ments of  Anglo-Saxon  law  afford  any  evidence,  there  was  no  Roman- 


262  HISTORY  OF  LAW 

ization  from  this  source.  The  system  of  courts  was  purely  Anglo- 
Saxon,  and  so  was  the  procedure.  The  age  was  not  one  marked  among 
the  EngUsh  or  among  Teutonic  peoples  in  the  northern  part  of  Europe 
by  any  enthusiasm  in  the  study  of  jurisprudence.  From  Alfred  to 
Edward  the  Confessor  the  laws,  so  far  as  we  have  any  evidence  as 
to  what  they  were,  remained  purely  Teutonic.  The  Danish  invasion 
introduced  no  Roman  elements,  for  as  yet  the  Danes  had  not  acquired 
Roman  institutions  or  laws.  The  laws  of  Cnut  were  as  purely  Teu- 
tonic as  those  of  Alfred. 

(3)  The  Norman  invasion  was  the  result  of  a  claim  of  William 
the  Conqueror  to  the  throne  of  England  by  inheritance,  and  his 
Norman  so-called  conquest  was  simply  the  establishment  by 
Conquest,  force  of  his  right  to  rule  as  an  English  king.  From  the 
first  he  recognized  the  Anglo-Saxon  laws  and  institutions,  and  re- 
peatedly bound  himself  to  observe  the  laws  of  Edward  the  Confessor. 
The  Normans  introduced  in  its  full  development  the  feudal  system, 
but  that  was  distinctly  Teutonic  and  antagonistic  to  the  social 
system  of  Rome.  The  laws  of  Normandy  are  to  be  discovered  by 
a  study  of  the  various  compilations  of  its  customary  laws,  and  such 
study  discovers  institutions  and  conceptions  of  law  purely  Teutonic 
and  almost  exclusively  feudal.  No  one  has  been  able  to  discover  in 
the  various  coutumiers  which  were  a  favorite  source  from  which  to 
ascertain  the  early  law  of  England  any  traces  of  Romanization. 
The  Assize  de  Jerusalem  which  the  Crusaders  promulgated  in  the 
East,  and  which  maintained  some  precarious  existence  there  for  a 
considerable  period,  was  feudal  and  not  Roman.  With  the  Normans 
came  the  distinct  conception  of  territoriality,  for  the  feudal  system 
was  territorial  rather  than  personal.  The  sovereignty  of  the  lord 
was  complete  and  absolute  within  the  limits  of  his  domain,  and 
took  no  account  of  the  principles  of  the  different  systems  of  law 
applicable  to  people  of  different  nationalities. 

(4)  Law  in  England  took  systematic  form  during  the  century 
and  a  half  from  the  beginning  of  the  reign  of  Henry  II  to  the  end 
Beginnin£  of  the  reign  of  Edward  I.  Were  the  form  and  conception 
°ti^^*^™'  ^^  ^^^  systematic  law  derived  from  the  civil  law?  Around 
in  England,  this  question  the  controversy  as  to  the  nature  of  the 
indebtedness  of  the  common  law  to  the  Roman  law  properly  turns. 
If  the  Anglo-Saxon  law  took  systematic  form  independently  of  any 
controlling  influences  from  the  civil  law,  then  it  is  as  much  entitled 
to  be  considered  a  self-dependent  system  as  the  Roman  law,  which, 
although  it  assimilated  to  itself  foreign  material,  was  in  its  spirit 
and  form  a  development  of  the  Roman  people. 

During  the  reign  of  Henry  II  the  elements  which  had  before 
that  time  been  lacking  to  entitle  the  common  law  of  the  Anglo- 
Saxons  to  be  regarded  as  a  system  of  jurisprudence  were  added  to 


HISTORY  OF   LAW  263 

it.  Previously  the  law  had  been  administered  almost  entirely  in 
local  jurisdictions  without  any  systematic  supervision.  System 
But  when  the  king  sent  his  justices  into  different  counties  be^nswith 
they  regarded  themselves  as  administering  the  king's  law  Henry  n. 
in  the  king's  name,  that  is,  as  administering  a  national  law.  Previ- 
ously there  had  been  no  form  of  judicial  trial,  which  properly  involves 
the  application  of  rules  of  law  previously  conceived  of  to  statements 
of  fact  to  be  ascertained  according  to  some  form  of  judicial  investi- 
gation. But  that  king  introduced  the  various  assizes  by  which  facts 
were  to  be  determined  in  order  to  ascertain  the  applicability  of  certain 
rules  of  feudal  tenure,  and  thus  laid  the  foundation  for  a  trial  to  the 
country,  that  is,  by  jury,  of  controversies  which  otherwise  would  have 
been  submitted  for  settlement  by  compurgation  or  ordeal.  From 
the  time  of  Henry  II  the  records  of  judicial  proceedings  are  pre- 
served, following  a  somewhat  well-established  form  of  procedure. 

The  first  English  law-book,  attributed  to  Glanville  and  entitled 
A  Treatise  on  the  Laws  and  Customs  of  the  Kingdom  of  England, 

was  written  and  made  public  at  the  close  of  this  reign,    ^, 

111         Glanville. 
that  is,  between  1187  and  1189.   It  is  immaterial  whether 

the  authorship  of  that  work  be  attributed  to  Glanville,  who  was 
Chief  Justice  of  the  King's  Court  near  the  close  of  that  reign,  or  to 
another.  It  is  a  systematic  treatise  purporting  to  state  the  law  of 
England  as  administered  in  the  courts.  It  is  not  a  compilation 
of  statutes,  but  an  exposition  of  a  judicial  system,  written  for  the 
purpose  of  making  the  laws  which  the  courts  administered  known 
to  those  participating  in  such  administration.  There  is  no  reason  to 
assume  that  the  author  of  this  treatise  was  ignorant  of  Roman 
civil  law,  the  study  of  which,  after  its  revival  in  the  schools  at 
Bologna  and  other  seats  of  learning,  had  been  prosecuted  by  stu- 
dents going  abroad,  and  under  Vacarius,  a  civilian  lecturing  at 
Oxford  prior  to  1171,  and  there  is  abundant  internal  evidence  in 
the  book  itself  of  the  famiharity  of  the  author  with  civil  law  doctrines. 
But  instead  of  pursuing  the  method  of  the  Institutes  of  Justinian, 
the  author  plunges  at  once  into  an  explanation  of  the  writs  known  to 
the  English  law,  by  which  proceedings  in  the  King's  Courts  were 
to  be  commenced  and  in  accordance  with  which  the  nature  of  the 
proceedings  in  any  particular  case  was  to  be  determined,  without 
paying  any  attention  to  the  natural  law  or  discussing  abstractly 
the  rights  of  persons  or  property;  and  two  thirds  of  the  book  is 
taken  up  with  these  writs,  of  which  it  is  apparent  that  the  author 
had  made  an  extensive  collection.  Now  the  writ  by  which  a  suit 
was  commenced  in  the  courts  of  the  king,  as  distinct  from  the 
process  by  which  suits  were  instituted  in  the  local  courts,  was  not 
analogous  to  anything  of  which  one  famiUar  with  the  civil  law  only 
would  have  knowledge.    If  the  author  of  the  treatise  had  had  in 


264  HISTORY  OF   LAW 

mind  the  purpose  to  expound  the  civil  law  as  recognized  in  and 
applicable  to  England,  he  would  naturally  have  selected  for  expo- 
sition some  features  common  to  the  two  systems  from  which  he 
might  have  built  up  a  presentation  of  English  law.  On  the  con- 
trary he  selected  a  pecuUarity  essentially  Enghsh,  and  introduced 
that  method  of  explanation  of  the  law  by  means  of  the  nature  and' 
form  of  the  writ  in  each  particular  class  of  cases  which  is  so  char- 
acteristic of  the  early  English  system.  It  is  hardly  to  be  believed, 
then,  that  the  system  which  the  author  of  the  so-called  Glanville 
treatise  conceived  of  as  the  English  law  was  in  any  way  dependent 
for  its  form  or  substance  on  the  civil  law,  which  was  then  receiving 
so  much  attention  abroad,  and  had  so  recently  been  the  subject  of 
instruction  at  Oxford. 

If  it  be  contended  that  English  jurisprudence  did  not  take  definite 
form  until  during  the  reign  of  Henry  III,  about  seventy  years  after 
Glanville,  when  Henry  de  Bracton  wrote  his  great 
work  in  five  books  on  The  Laws  and  Customs  of  Eng- 
land, and  that  this  was  the  first  arrangement  of  the  English  law 
in  a  systematic  manner^  and  further  that  this  treatise  shows  the 
distinct  recognition  and  acceptance  of  the  forms  and  principles  of 
the  Corpus  Juris  Civilis,  it  is  necessary,  in  discussing  the  issue  thus 
raised,  to  make  a  thorough  estimate  of  the  nature  of  the  work 
which  Bracton  really  did  in  formulating  the  English  system.  In 
speaking  of  the  laws  of  England  as  distinct  from  those  of  other 
countries,  in  that  they  are  not  written  and  are  founded  on  usage 
and  custom,  but  are  nevertheless  entitled  to  the  name  of  laws  be- 
cause they  have  the  force  of  law,  Bracton  says  it  should  be  known 
that  the  nature  of  the  treatise  consists  of  "the  facts  and  the  cases 
which  daily  emerge  and  happen  in  the  realm  of  England  that  it 
may  be  known  what  is  the  proper  action  and  what  is  the  proper 
writ  according  as  the  plaint  shall  be  real  or  personal,  and  what 
acts  are  thereupon  to  be  completed,  and  what  enrollments  are  to 
be  made  according  to  the  pleas  and  the  objections,  in  accusing  and 
in  proving,  and  in  defending  and  in  excepting,  and  in  replying  and 
so  forth. "  Proceeding,  then,  with  a  somewhat  philosophical  state- 
ment of  the  nature  of  law  and  definitions  of  jurisprudence,  of 
equity,  and  of  rights,  all  of  which  are  evidently  fashioned  after  the 
exposition  of  the  civil  law  found  in  Azo's  Summa,  a  treatise  then 
well  known,  and  to  which  the  author  makes  specific  reference,  and 
some  further  theoretical  exposition  of  the  nature  of  rights  in  things 
and  the  method  of  acquiring  them,  he  proceeds  in  his  Third  Book 
with  a  discussion  of  actions,  still  following  his  civil  law  guide, 
although  adapting  the  matter  to  some  extent  to  common  law  pro- 
cedure. But  in  the  Second  Treatise  of  the  Third  Book  he  speaks  of 
the  Crown,  and  under  that  head  discusses  the  law  of  crimes,  and 


HISTORY  OF   LAW  265 

for  this  subject  he  apparently  finds  no  guidance  in  the  civil  law; 
and  in  the  remainder  of  the  work  he  describes  with  great  elaboration 
the  various  assizes,  the  writ  of  right,  essoins,  warranty,  and  other 
subjects  peculiar  to  the  Enghsh  law,  without  any  indebtedness,  so 
far  as  can  be  discovered,  to  the  form  or  substance  of  the  Roman 
civil  law.  And  throughout  all  that  portion  of  the  treatise,  which 
constitutes  its  major  part,  in  which  he  purports  to  present  the  law  as 
administered  in  England,  he  refers  to  the  decisions  of  the  judges  as 
the  satisfactory  evidence  of  what  the  law  of  England  is  on  the  points 
discussed,  and  makes  no  pretension  of  resting  upon  the  authority  of 
the  civil  law,  nor  is  there  any  internal  evidence  of  his  having  done  so. 

In  fact,  Bracton's  treatise  is  an  exposition  of  a  distinctive  EngUsh 
system  of  jurisprudence,  prefaced  by  a  scholar's  disquisition  on  the 
general  nature  of  law  derived  confessedly  from  a  study    wn*„j.g  q* 
of  the  Roman  system.    It  seems  to  be  well  established    Bracton's 
that  Bracton  was  a  cleric,  and  therefore  educated  in    '^°^*^- 
the  canon  law,  which  embodied  largely  the  principles  and  methods 
of  the  civil  law,  and  that  on  the  other  hand  Glanville  was  not  a  cleric, 
but  only  a  common  law  judge;  and  perhaps  this  suggestion  as  to  the 
preliminary  education  of  the  two  men  may  explain  the  fact  that 
Bracton  prefaced  his  treatise  with  an  exposition  of  civil  law  learning. 

If  the  law  of  England  as  a  system  of  jurisprudence  was  first  given 
definite  form  by  Bracton,  then  is  that  system  to  be  found  in  the  first 
portion  of  his  treatise,  confessedly  modeled  after  the  ^^ 
civil  law,  or  in  the  latter  portion,  which  is  devoted  to  the  Law  in 
law  of  England  as  expounded  by  the  judges  and  resting  ^'^^"o^' 
on  their  authority  and  not  on  civil  law  authority  or  learning?  Clearly 
the  latter  assumption  is  the  correct  one;  for  when  Bracton  is  sub- 
sequently cited  as  an  authority  on  English  law,  reference  is  made  to 
the  portion  of  the  work  which  purports  to  state  English  law  pure 
and  simple,  and  not  to  the  portion  which  contains  an  exposition 
of  the  general  principles  of  law  derived  from  civilian  sources.  And 
when  a  writer  generally  known  by  the  name  of  Britton  attempted, 
during  the  early  years  of  Edward  I  and  within  a  quarter  of  a  century 
after  Bracton's  time,  to  state  the  English  law,  purporting  to  speak 
in  the  name  of  the  King,  while  he  evidently  borrowed  much  of  his 
material  from  Bracton,  he  ignored  entirely  the  general  exposition  of 
law  and  confined  himself  strictly  to  those  subjects  discussed  in  that 
portion  of  Bracton's  work  professing  to  deal  with  the  English  law  as 
he  found  it;  and  in  this  respect  he  followed  the  method  of  Glanville 
rather  than  that  of  Bracton. 

Much  light  is  thrown  on  Bracton's  sources  of  authority  for  the 
English  law  by  his  voluminous  note-book  recently  trans-    Bracton's 
lated  and  edited,  in  which  are  set  forth  memoranda  of    Note- 
many  cases  decided  by  the  judges.      These  memoranda     °°  " 


266  HISTORY  OF   LAW 

evidently  furnished  the  material  in  the  light  of  which  the  English 
law  was  expounded  by  the  author  in  his  treatise,  and  they  serve 
to  characterize  Bracton  as  in  a  proper  sense  the  first  exponent  of 
a  system  of  law  founded  upon  judicial  decisions  and  the  records  of 
courts  as  distinct  from  the  nature  and  form  of  the  peculiar  wTits  by 
which  actions  in  the  English  courts  were  instituted.  From  the  time 
of  Edward  I  to  the  present  the  material  resorted  to  by  judges, 
lawyers,  and  students  consists  of  decisions  in  particular  cases,  pre- 
served first  in  the  Year-Books  and  subsequently  in  the  various  series 
of  English  reports,  and  later  made  the  subject  of  exposition  by  text- 
writers.  The  effort  of  Bracton  to  introduce  a  scientific  system  of 
general  law  by  following  civil  law  exposition,  if  there  was  any  such 
effort,  was  a  complete  failure;  and  after  his  time  judges,  lawyers, 
authors,  and  students  resorted  to  judicial  decisions  as  found  in  the 
reports,  and  collected  by  Fitzherbert,  Brooke,  and  other  digesters 
under  heads  having  no  reference  whatever  to  civil  law  arrangement, 
but  adapted  strictly  to  the  subjects  under  which  the  distinctively 
English  law  naturally  arranged  itself. 

Blackstone's  arrangement  of  the  law  under  four  headings,  Rights 
of  Persons,  Rights  of  Things,  Private  Wrongs,  and  Public  Wrongs,  is 
notoriously  unscientific,  but  it  is  based  on  civil  law  notions.  The 
fact  is  that  the  classification  of  the  Corpus  Juris  Civilis  was  not  the 
result  of  any  scientific  conceptions,  but  was  founded  on  custom, 
which  represented  an  effort  to  reach  an  arrangement  intelligible  and 
convenient.  Our  present  classification  of  the  common  law  has  been 
worked  out  in  the  same  way. 

For  the  present  discussion  it  is  immaterial  to  what  extent  judges 
and  authors  resorted  to  the  civil  law  after  Bracton 's  time  to  discover 
Subseauent  Principles  which  might  be  applied  in  the  decision  of 
Resort  to  cases  not  covered  by  English  procedure.  That  such  re- 
Law.  gQj^  ^^g  j^g^^^  especially  in  equity  and  admiralty  courts, 
may  be  fully  conceded.  But  this  has  little  bearing  on  the  proposition 
that  the  common  law  as  a  scientific  system  of  jurisprudence  is  dis- 
tinctively English  and  does  not  owe  its  form  or  substance  to  any 
learning  derived  from  civil  law  sources. 

The  effort  to  make  use  of  the  civil  law  in  illustrating  and  expound- 
ing the  common  law  is  apparent  in  both  English  and  American 
Citation  of  treatises  on  branches  of  the  law.  Blackstone  not  infre- 
inText^^  quently  refers  to  civil  law  doctrines,  and  Kent  and 
books.  Story  sometimes  make  such  references  at  considerable 

length.  But  the  practice  has  largely  fallen  into  disuse,  for  the 
evident  reason  that  the  decisions  of  the  English  and  American 
courts  furnish  better  illustrations  of  the  principles  which  have  been 
and  will  be  applied  in  the  decision  of  cases  than  the  Corpus  Juris 
of  Justinian  or  the  voluminous  expositions  of  the  civil  law  to  be 


HISTORY  OF   LAW  267 

found  in  countries  where  that  system  prevails.  There  has  been  no 
effort  to  ignore  the  civil  law  or  to  shut  out  any  possible  use  which 
can  be  made  of  it  in  the  exposition  or  development  of  the  English 
system,  but  common  law  lawyers  have  reached  the  practical  con- 
clusion that  they  cannot  secure  favorable  consideration  by  common 
law  or  equity  courts  of  arguments  based  on  the  rules  of  the  civil 
law,  and  the  judges  have  found  that  they  can  reach  a  more  satis- 
factory solution  of  disputed  questions  of  law  by  considering  the 
analogies  found  in  the  decisions  of  courts  applying  the  principles  of 
the  common  law  system  than  by  resorting  to  civil  law  authorities. 

The  indebtedness,  then,  of  the  common  law  to  the  civil  law  is  not 
for  scientific  form  nor  substantial  content,  but  for  words  and  phrases 
which  have  afforded  a  convenient  channel  through  which    indebted- 
juristic  ideas  might  be  expressed,  and  for  some  partic-    ^®ss  of 
ular  rules  applicable  in  the  solution  of  legal  difficulties    to  Civil 
which,  having  arisen  among  Romanized  peoples  on  ac-   I'*^- 
count  of  their  more  advanced  civilization,  gave  occasion  for  the 
announcement  of  principles  which  were  helpful  to  the  common  law 
jurist  in  similar  cases. 

A  comparison  between  the  English  system  of  law  and  the  civil 
law  system  of  the  Northern  European  states  suggests  not  a  greater 
indebtedness  to  the  civil  law  on  the  part  of  the  common  Indebted- 
law,  but  a  smaller  indebtedness  of  the  Northern  European  ^j^  ^aw 
systems.  Glanville  expresses  the  essential  distinction  toSys- 
between  the  laws  of  England  and  those  of  European  jj^^^m 
countries  when  he  says  that  the  EngUsh  laws,  although  Europe, 
not  written,  may  be  termed  laws,  for  the  mere  want  of  writing  does 
not  deprive  them  of  that  character.  And  indeed,  the  resemblance 
of  the  codes  of  France,  Germany,  Austria,  and  Belgium  to  the  Jus- 
tinian Code  in  matters  of  form  is  a  strong  argument  against  the 
assumption  that  the  systems  of  jurisprudence  of  these  countries  are 
directly  derived  from  the  Roman  system  as  a  fountain-head.  For  the 
science  of  law  is  a  social  science  and  the  result  of  evolution.  As  con- 
ditions change,  so  the  law  must  change,  and  conceptions  familiar 
to  the  people  of  one  century  become  unintelligible  to  their  successors 
of  the  next.  Those  who  expound  the  common  law  take  great  pride 
in  the  continuity  of  the  institutions  and  principles  which  they  find 
recognized  therein  traceable  to  Anglo-Saxon  or  Norman  sources;  but 
for  practical  purposes  the  decisions  of  the  judges  represented  in  the 
Year-Books  and  collected  in  Fitzherbert's  Abridgment  are  no  more 
intelligible  to  the  judge  or  lawyer  of  to-day  who  is  properly  concerned 
primarily  with  the  decision  of  cases  now  arising  than  the  opinions 
of  Paul,  Ulpian,  or  Papinian  in  the  second  or  third  century  of  the 
Christian  era.  Indeed,  the  decisions  found  in  the  Year-Books  are  less 
intelligible  to   the  modem  lawyer,  for  they  deal  with  crude  facts 


268  HISTORY  OF   LAW 

and  a  procedure  which  is  obsolete,  so  that  the  issues  are  not  to  be 
understood  without  a  laborious  tracing  of  the  historical  connection 
between  the  law  of  that  time  and  the  law  of  the  present,  while  the 
generalizations  of  the  civilian  writers  have  in  appearance  at  least 
some  force  and  meaning.  A  similar  comparison  may  be  made  be- 
tween the  French  or  German  or  Belgian  codes  and  the  Code  of 
Justinian.  The  subject-matter  is  so  entirely  different,  and  the  legal 
relations  applicable  to  existing  social  conditions  are  so  dissimilar, 
that  only  to  a  very  limited  extent  is  the  one  illuminated  by  the  other. 
For  example,  the  law  of  commercial  paper,  which  is  supposed  to 
have  been  incorporated  into  the  English  law  from  civil  law  coun- 
tries by  the  recognition  in  England  of  the  custom  of  merchants 
which  had  been  brought  from  continental  countries,  was  entirely 
unknown  to  the  lawyer  of  the  time  of  Justinian.  Indeed,  so  rapid, 
as  compared  with  the  course  of  general  historical  development, 
have  been  the  changes  in  social  conditions  that  the  Code  Napoleon, 
the  latest  typical  civil  law  code,  promulgated  in  1807,  contains  but 
a  small  part  of  the  written  law  actually  administered  in  France, 
and  it  has  necessarily  been  supplemented  by  codified  legislation  of 
almost  equal  bulk. 

For  historical  purposes,  therefore,  it  may  properly  be  said  that 
there  are  in  the  civilized  world  two  independent  systems  of  law, 
which  have  had  marked  and  important  relations  to  each  other,  but 
which  have  grown  from  distinct  sources;  and  it  may  not  be  entirely 
foreign  to  the  province  of  an  historical  discussion  to  notice  in  con- 
clusion and  briefly  their  substantial  differences. 

The  most  striking  difference  is  that  which  has  been  recognized  ever 
since  the  earUest  scientific  exposition  of  the  common  law  system, 
Common  ^^^^  ^^  remains  substantially  a  body  of  unwritten  law. 
Law  not  that  is,  a  body  of  law  not  resting  upon  legislative  author- 
^"^  ®^  ity;  while  the  civil  law,  wherever  it  prevails,  has  been 
reduced  to  authoritative  written  form.  In  other  words,  the  common 
law  remains  largely  a  law  of  precedent,  while  the  civil  law  is  one  of 
enactment.  The  former  is  more  easily  adapted  to  changed  conditions, 
the  latter  more  easily  reduced  to  scientific  statement.  The  former 
is  cumbersome  on  account  of  the  immense  mass  of  material  to  which 
resort  must  be  had  in  ascertaining  the  rule  which  should  be  applied 
to  a  particular  case;  the  latter  is  uncertain  and  indefinite  because 
of  the  difficulty  in  making  authoritative  exposition  or  interpreting 
statutory  language  as  applied  to  new  conditions.  Even  in  the  field 
of  authoritative  legislation  the  common  law  is  more  adjustable 
than  the  civil  law  because  of  the  greater  freedom  which  the  courts 
exercise  in  the  interpretation  of  statutory  enactments  additional  to 
or  superseding  the  unwritten  law.  The  simplicity  and  brevity  of 
written  codes  constitute  attractions  for  the  writer  on  jurisprudence 


HISTORY  OF   LAW  269 

not  justified  by  their  results  in  the  actual  administration  of  the 
law. 

Another  marked  difference  between  the  two  systems  is  the  separa- 
tion in  practical  administration  of  the  functions  of  determining  the 
law  and  the  facts  for  the  particular  case.  There  was  a  Separation 
similar  separation  under  the  civil  law  as  administered  ofQues- 
at  Rome,  with  this  difference,  however,  that  the  general  Law  a^nd 
principle  to  be  applied  to  the  case  was  determined  ab-  Fact, 
stractly  beforehand,  and  the  facts  ascertained  afterwards,  while  in 
the  common  law  system  the  principles  are  expounded  only  with 
reference  to  the  particular  facts.  But  in  the  modem  civil  law  prin- 
ciples and  facts  are  usually  determined  in  one  investigation  and 
without  any  definite  distinction  as  between  the  two  processes.  The 
common  law  jury  trial  is  cumbersome,  and  sometimes  imsatisfactory 
by  reason  of  this  separation  of  functions  between  the  jury  and  the 
judge;  but  on  the  whole  the  development  of  the  law  as  a  system  is 
thereby  promoted,  and  there  is  a  practical  advantage  in  placing  the 
judge  with  relation  to  the  case  in  the  attitude  of  an  arbitrator  of  the 
law,  superintending  only  the  determination  of  questions  of  fact.  It 
can  hardly  be  said  that  in  this  respect  either  system  possesses  any 
marked  advantage  over  the  other.  Certainly  there  would  be  no 
gain  to  either  system  from  any  attempt  to  introduce  into  it  the 
methods  of  the  other.  Each  has  had  its  historical  growth,  and  each 
has  become  a  part  of  the  social  organization  of  the  people  among 
whom  it  prevails. 

It  may  be  justly  claimed  for  the  common  law  system  that  it 
represents  more  fully  the  conception  of  law  as  the  outgrowth  of 
social  conditions,  and  resting  for  its  authority  upon  the    Rests  on 
aggregate  social  will.     There  is   something  more  than    p^^^ff*^ 
rhetorical    commonplace   in   speaking   of   the   common   Will, 
law  as  the  law  of  the  people.  The  civil  law,  on  the  other  hand,  is  pecu- 
liarly the  law  of  a  sovereign,  whether  that  sovereign  be  a  monarch 
or  a  legislative  body  with  unrestricted  powers. 

It  is  this  last    distinction  which    suggests    a  certain  dramatic 
interest  attaching  to  the  contest  for  supremacy  on  the  American 
continents    between    the    Latin    races    and  the  Anglo-   jjiyigjon  of 
Saxon  race  as  affecting  the  history  of  law.  The  Spaniards   America 
planted  the  civil  law  in  the  states  of  South  America  and    co^fon 
in  Mexico,  where  it  still  remains  the  foundation  of  juris-    Law  and 
prudence.    The  Anglo-Saxons  brought  the  common  law  ^^" 

to  the  Atlantic  coast  of  the  continent  of  North  America.  The 
final  supremacy  of  the  common  law  in  Canada  and  in  the  other 
portions  of  the  North  American  Continent  east  of  the  Mississippi 
was  determined  by  the  result  of  the  long  conflict  between  the  English 
and  the  French.   But  it  remained  for  the  United  States,  in  the  acqui- 


270  HISTORY  OF  LAW 

sition  of  the  territory  of  the  Louisiana  Purchase,  to  determine  that 
the  common  law  system  should  substantially  prevail  in  that  great 
region.  Those  ambitious  and  adventurous  pioneers  of  Latin  civil- 
ization, La  Salle,  Marquette,  and  Joliet,  blazed  the  way  for  the  civil 
law,  but  the  legitimate  fruits  of  their  struggle  were  not  gathered  by 
the  civil  law,  but  on  the  other  hand  were  substantially  denied  to  it 
when  Napoleon  sold  the  Louisiana  Territory  to  the  United  States. 
If  the  common  law  system  is  better  suited  to  the  needs  of  a  free 
people  and  an  advancing  civilization  than  the  ciAdl  law,  which  ob- 
tained its  historical  form  under  an  absolute  empire,  then  it  is  fortunate 
for  humanity,  and  in  particular  for  the  people  of  this  great  Western 
country,  that  in  the  conflict  of  races  supremacy  was  established  for 
the  common  law  by  the  success  of  those  who  inherited  Anglo-Saxon 
institutions  and  established  them  throughout  the  region  between 
the  Mississippi  and  the  Pacific. 


CHARACTERISTICS  OF  THE  COMMON   LAW 

BY    NATHAN   ABBOTT 

[Nathan  Abbott,  Professor  of  Law,  Leland  Stanford  Jr.  University,  since  1894; 
b.  July  11,  1854,  Norridgewock,  Maine.  A.B.  Yale;  LL.B.  Boston;  Professor  of 
Law,  University  of  Michigan,  1891-92;  ibid.  Northwestern  University,  1892-94.] 

During  the  three  centuries  prior  to  Lord  Coke  the  common  law 
of  England  in  some  way  or  other  gathered  itself  together  out  of 
custom  and  differentiated  itself  from  other  legal  systems  so  far  as  to 
have  gained  a  name  and  home  —  the  common  law  of  England.  It 
was  the  great  intellectual  achievement  of  a  people  large  enough  and 
strong  enough  to  have  ideas  of  its  own,  and  isolated  and  individual 
enough  to  develop  those  ideas  in  its  own  way.  In  the  three  centuries 
subsequent  to  Lord  Coke  its  child  in  America  has  lived  and  grown 
after  the  manner  of  its  kind,  but  it  has  not  yet  gained  a  new  name, 
although  it  has  a  new  home.  It  is  the  common  law  of  England  in 
America  —  the  common  law  of  England  plus  those  slow  accretions 
and  changes  that  were  inevitable  where  a  free  and  expanding  people 
expressed  their  jural  needs.  This  is  also  the  great  intellectual  achieve- 
ment of  the  American  people;  in  the  eighteenth  century  its  one 
intellectual  product,  in  the  nineteenth  century  its  greatest  intel- 
lectual product. 

The  common  law  in  both  countries  in  its  beginning  was  the  ex- 
pression of  a  free  people's  needs  and  standards  of  justice,  and  was 
not  essentially  different  in  its  nature  from  their  needs  and  standards 
as  expressed  in  art  or  in  Uterature.  And  the  common  law  being  the 
product  of  a  free  people  is  a  living  institution  possessed,  not  only  of 
a  vital  and  conservative,  but  also  of  an  assimilative  and  progressive 
power. 

The  vicissitudes  of  parent  and  child  exemplify  what  such  a  living 
institution  can  endure.  But  law  as  a  living  institution  is  not  as  stable 
as  living  matter.  A  cross-section  of  a  tree  at  its  base  is  not  essentially 
different  from  one  made  one  hundred  feet  from  its  base.  A  cross- 
section  of  the  common  law  at  one  time  is  not  necessarily  like  one 
made  at  an  earlier  or  later  time.  Its  nature  changes  with  the  national 
views  of  that  on  which  law  rests.  This  in  part  explains  the  difficulties 
encountered  in  defining  law.  What  at  one  time  is  custom  at  another 
time  is  law,  and  yet  each  will  have  a  like  compelling  force. 

The  purpose  of  this  paper  is  to  give  some  account  of  the  funda- 
mental characteristics  of  the  common  law  at  two  somewhat  widely 
separated  periods  and  to  contrast  them.  One  period  is  that  of  the 
common  law  in  the  time  of  Lord  Coke,  the  other  the  common  law 


272  HISTORY   OF   LAW 

in  America  at  the  present  day.  The  periods  are  separated  by  three 
centuries,  or  those  of  the  common  law  in  sixteen  hundred  and  in 
nineteen  hundred.  The  period  with  Lord  Coke  is  selected  because 
during  his  time  the  jurisdiction  of  the  common  law  courts  was 
defined,  limits  to  the  royal  prerogative  set,  and  chancery  made 
a  court  of  ordinary  jurisdiction  for  equity;  and  because  this  was  the 
time  of  the  beginning  of  colonization  in  America.  The  common  law 
of  Lord  Coke  was  the  common  law  of  Winthrop  and  Smith. 

Like  other  forms  of  thought  manifested  in  literature,  the  common 
law  is  the  product  of  influences  that  can  be  discovered  and  whose 
effects  can  be  traced.  These  influences  may  be  called  direct,  if  exer- 
cised by  the  people  or  the  judges,  and  indirect  if  occasioned  by 
forces  operating  on  the  people  or  the  judges.  A  body  of  law  which 
starts  with  the  proposition  that  it  is  the  custom  of  the  people  soon 
arrives  at  the  stage  where  the  solution  of  legal  questions  calls  for  the 
aid  of  either  outside  systems  or  reason.  According  as  the  people  or 
the  legal  profession  applying  this  reason  or  deductions  from  the 
outside  system  have  been  the  more  concerned  in  law-making,  the 
characteristics  of  the  law  have  been  popular  or  technical  and  con- 
servative or  progressive.  It  is  therefore  necessary,  if  we  would  dis- 
cover the  characteristics  of  the  common  law,  to  say  something  of 
the  influences  that  contributed  to  shape  it  prior  to  Lord  Coke;  then 
to  note  its  characteristics  in  his  day;  and  then  to  speak  of  the 
influences  that  operated  in  America  to  influence  its  unwritten  law, 
and  to  note  its  characteristics  so  far  as  they  are  disclosed  by  certain 
resemblances  in.  the  law  of  the  several  states. 

Of  the  external  influences,  the  canon  and  the  civil  law  were  most 
potent  and  operated  upon  the  common  law  by  way  of  compression 
rather  than  repression.  Apprehensions  of  those  systems  and  con- 
tentions with  them  intensified  the  loyalty  of  the  English  people  for 
their  own  system.  The  power  of  the  advocates  of  the  canon  and 
civil  law  in  the  universities,  combined  with  the  location  of  the  courts 
at  Westminster,  tended  to  develop  the  schools  of  common  law  in 
the  Inns  of  Court.  The  decline  of  the  local  courts  with  the  growth 
of  courts  at  Westminster  made  them  less  responsive  to  and  expressive 
of  popular  needs,  and  may  have  impaired  the  popular  regard  for  the 
common  law.  How  far  the  oft-quoted  phrase  in  the  Statute  of  Merton 
justifies  wide  generalization,  it  is  not  easy  to  say.  But  the  influence 
of  the  Inns  of  Court  would  seem  inevitably  to  substitute  a  profes- 
sional for  a  popular  standard  of  justice.  The  concentration  in  those 
Inns  of  a  body  of  specialists,  who  for  years  dealt  with  problems, 
worked  out  in  moots,  in  the  halls,  and  in  arguments  in  court  under  the 
scholastic  training  of  the  century  before  Lord  Coke,  must  have 
developed  a  body  of  logicians  and  a  legal  system  founded  on  logic. 
In  the  Inns  of  Court,  like  bees  in  a  hive,  the  lawyers  secreted  the  law 


CHARACTERISTICS   OF  THE  COMMON   LAW      273 

of  England.  It  was  no  longer  the  custom  of  the  people,  although 
so  described,  but  a  highly  technical  law.  That  the  written  law  and 
the  pleadings  were  expressed  in  Latin  or  French  would  also  tend 
to  restrict  its  expression  to  lawyers.  These  influences  would  tend  to 
impair  the  close  relation  of  the  people  to  their  law  that  early  had 
existed.  The  introduction  of  a  technical  procedure  which  under  the 
hand  of  the  professional  lawyer  would  tend  to  be  an  end  rather  than 
the  means  would  be  misunderstood  by  the  people.  Authorities 
given  in  Parke's  History  of  Chancery  show  considerable  evidence  in  the 
statutes  and  in  the  debates  in  Parliament  that  the  common  people 
were  discontented  with  the  common  law  and  its  professors.  But  the 
lawyers  were  calling  their  handiwork  the  perfection  of  reason.  The 
pages  of  Coke  and  Plowden  abound  with  cases  that  are  in  no  way 
related  to  the  customs  of  the  people.  As  Professor  Gray  says,  "  With 
a  great  part  of  the  law  the  customs  of  the  people  have  obviously 
had  nothing  more  to  do  than  have  the  motions  of  the  planets.  The 
enormous  mass  of  the  law  of  pleading  and  of  evidence  has  been 
born  and  bred  within  the  four  walls  of  a  court.  The  community  at 
large,  those  who  make  custom,  know  absolutely  nothing  about  it. 
So  with  a  great  part  of  those  legal  rules  which  are  not  plainly  of  an 
ethical  character.  For  instance,  the  rule  in  Shelly's  Case,  is  that  a 
product  of  the  'common  conscience  of  the  people';  or  the  rule  that 
'dying  without  issue'  means  an  indefinite  failure  of  issue;  or  is  the 
rule  that  a  parol  promise  without  consideration  cannot  be  enforced 
a  spontaneous  evolution  of  the  popular  mind?"  ("  Definitions  and 
Questions  in  Jurisprudence,"  6  Harvard  Law  Review,  21-32,  1892.) 
It  is  evident,  then,  that  the  change  from  popular  to  professional 
factors  occasioned  by  external  pressure  and  internal  development 
have  affected  the  fundamental  characteristics  of  the  common  law. 

In  the  growth  of  the  sovereign  power  and  the  legislative,  judicial, 
and  ecclesiastical  elements  of  society  each  has  exalted  its  powers  and 
extended  its  frontiers.  There  comes  a  time  when  the  last  meet 
and  tend  to  overlap.  The  controversies  engendered  in  adjusting 
the  powers  and  defining  the  frontiers  have  created  the  larger  part  of 
constitutional  law,  the  province  of  legislation,  and  the  jurisdiction 
of  courts.  The  common  law  was  affected  in  its  scope  by  the  contro- 
versies of  its  judges  with  canonists  and  chancellors.  And  the  content 
of  the  law  was  modified  by  the  struggle  between  the  different  courts 
for  litigants  and  preeminence. 

There  are  two  forces  having  their  source  in  national  traits  which 
contributed  to  shape  English  law;  one  is  the  liking  for  fair  play  and 
the  natural  turn  of  mind  for  litigation  that  is  found  in  the  English 
people.  By  this  is  meant  something  more  than  a  fancy  for  contention 
and  technicality;  rather  the  right  settlement  of  disputes  in  an 
orderly  and  judicial  way.    Perhaps  at  this  day  it  may  be  difficult  to 


274  HISTORY  OF  LAW 

affirm  that  this  is  a  cause  or  an  effect  from  such  masterful  hands  as 
those  of  Henry  II.  But  the  reliance  on  courts  has  tended  to  the  de- 
velopment of  law  and  the  independence  of  the  judge.  It  is  of  this  that 
Lieber  says,  "  It  is  a  great  element  of  civil  liberty  and  part  of  a  real 
government  of  law  which  in  its  totality  has  been  developed  by  the 
AngUcan  tribe  alone.  It  is  this  portion  of  freemen  alone  on  the  face  of 
the  earth  which  enjoys  it  in  its  totality."  (Civ.  Lib.  and  Self -Govt., 
p.  203.)  The  other  is  a  respect  for  authority  deep-seated  in  the 
English  people,  a  respect  arising  either  from  position  or  age.  This 
in  part  explains  why  precedents  have  such  a  hold  on  the  courts, 
and  its  lack  is  one  of  the  facts  to  be  noted  in  America.  It  has  been 
said  that  the  reliance  on  precedents  is  due  to  an  incapacity  in  the 
English  to  reason  generally.  Commenting  on  the  arguments  in  the 
debates  on  impositions  in  1610,  in  which  we  find  an  early  and 
remarkable  use  of  precedents,  Mr.  Gardner  says,  "The  speakers  on 
both  sides  seemed  to  have  had  a  horror  of  general  reasoning." 
(2  Hist,  of  Eng.  75.)  De  Tocqueville  noted  this  trait  in  Englishmen 
and  its  absence  in  Americans,  and  devotes  a  chapter  to  "Why 
the  Americans  show  more  aptitude  and  taste  for  general  ideas  than 
their  forefathers,  the  English. "  (Dem.  in  Am.  vol.  ii,  chap.  3.)  It 
will  be  instructive  to  follow  the  Japanese  in  their  jural  growth  under 
a  French  code  with  their  seeming  natural  capacity  for  generalization, 
but  with  their  present  tendency  to  disregard  precedent  excepting 
for  illustration.  (See  address  of  Dr.  Rokuichino  Masujima  before 
N.  Y.  State  Bar  Ass'n,  1903.)  The  other  aspect  of  authoritj'^  arising 
from  age  is  commented  on  by  Mr.  Gardner  in  connection  with  the 
same  impost  debates,  "  Our  ancestors  did  not  refer  to  precedents 
merely  because  they  were  anxious  to  tread  in  the  steps  of  those 
who  went  before  them,  but  because  it  was  their  settled  belief  that 
England  had  always  been  well  governed  and  prosperous.  They 
quoted  a  statute  not  because  it  was  old  but  because  they  knew  that, 
ninety-nine  times  out  of  every  hundred,  their  predecessors  had 
passed  good  laws."  Lord  Ellesmere  in  Calvin's  Case,  quoting  from  the 
Year- Books,  said,  "Our  predecessors  were  as  sage  and  learned  as  we 
be."  In  connection  with  precedent  in  the  time  of  Coke  it  is  to  be 
noted  that  during  the  reign  of  Elizabeth  the  printing-press  was  busy 
reproducing  law-books.  The  labors  of  Tottell  made  the  Year- Books 
a  "  profitable  and  popular  literature."  (See  Soule,  ''  Year-Book  Bib- 
liography," 14  Harvard  Law  Review,  563,  564.)  There  were  edi- 
tions of  all  the  treatises,  and  these  with  the  abridgments  opened  up 
the  past  and  ancient  laws  to  the  professional  students  in  the  Inns  in 
a  new  and  forceful  way. 

In  trying  to  describe  the  fundamental  characteristics  of  the  com- 
mon law  I  appreciate  that  it  vnll  be  difficult  to  say  anything  that 
is  not  trite  or  commonplace.    To  obviate  this  in  part  I  shall  select 


CHARACTERISTICS   OF  THE  COMMON  LAW       275 

a  case  in  the  time  of  Lord  Coke,  and  with  it  endeavor  to  iUustrate 
such  characteristics  as  seem  to  me  fundamental.  The  case  chosen 
is  Calvin's.  It  was  an  exceptional  case,  interesting  in  itself  and  for 
what  it  discloses  by  inference.  It  also  is  a  convenient  case  because 
of  its  relation  to  the  American  colonists,  and  for  its  effect  upon  the 
political  debates  of  the  middle  of  the  eighteenth  century. 

From  the  meeting  of  the  crowns  of  Scotland  and  of  England  in 
James  I  arose  the  question  whether  the  post-nati,  or  those  born  in 
Scotland  after  the  accession  of  James  to  the  crown  of  England,  were 
aUens  in  England.  A  proclamation  of  James  directly  answered  this 
in  the  negative.  Commissioners  of  both  countries  proposed  to  the 
Parliaments  of  both  countries  that  the  common  law  of  both  nations 
should  be  declared  to  be  that  all  born  in  either  nation  since  James 
was  king  of  both  were  mutually  naturahzed  in  both.  The  House  of 
Lords  and  ten  out  of  twelve  of  the  judges  of  England  supported  this 
view.  But  the  Commons  would  not  assent  to  declare  that  the  com- 
mon law  was  as  proposed.  It  was  therefore  determined  to  bring  the 
question  before  the  courts.  For  this  purpose  land  was  bought  in 
London  in  the  name  of  one  miscalled  Calvin,  an  infant  born  in 
Scotland  since  the  accession  of  James  to  the  English  throne,  and 
a  suit  was  brought  in  Calvin's  name  in  the  King's  Bench  to  gain 
possession  of  the  free-hold.  And  a  bill  was  brought  in  Chancery  for 
detainer  of  the  title-deeds.  A  demurrer  in  both  cases  raised  the 
question  in  each  case  whether  the  plaintiff  being  an  ahen  born  be 
disabled  to  bring  any  real  or  personal  action  for  land  within  England. 
After  argument  in  the  King's  Bench,  both  cases  were  adjourned 
into  the  Exchequer  Chamber,  and  there  argued  by  counsel  and  all 
the  judges  of  England  and  Lord  Chancellor  Ellesmere.  The  Lord 
Chancellor  and  twelve  out  of  the  fourteen  judges  decided  the  demurrer 
in  favor  of  the  plaintiff  on  the  ground  that,  having  been  born  since 
the  accession  of  James,  he  was  not  an  alien  in  England.^ 

The  first  characteristic  illustrated  by  Calvin's  Case  is  that  the 
common  law  deals  with  facts. 

Under  some  systems  a  hypothetical  question  can  be  presented  to 
the  judges.  In  Calvin's  Case  one  might  have  been  framed  generally: 
Is  a  person  born  in  Scotland  since  James  I  became  King  of  England 
an  alien  in  England?  But  such  a  proceeding  is  not  possible  by  the 
common  law.  It  was  necessary  to  present  to  the  judges  the  facts 
of  a  real  case.  There  must  be  parties  before  the  court  before  it  will 
act.  And  without  them  and  a  specific  question  to  decide,  all  the 
utterances  of  the  court  are  obiter.   Bacon  said  in  his  argument,  "  The 

»  Calvin's  Case  is  reported  in  7  Rep.  4a  (1608).  The  arguments  in  committee 
in  1606  in  Moore,  p.  790;  and  both  of  these,  with  the  argument  of  Bacon,  Solicitor- 
General,  counsel  for  Calvin,  in  the  Exchequer  Chamber,  and  Lord  Chancellor 
Ellesmere's  opinion  in  the  Exchequer  Chamber,  are  in  2  How.  State  Trials, 
559-695. 


276  HISTORY  OF   LAW 

case  is  no  feigned  or  framed  case,  but  a  true  case  between  two 
parties,"  Legislation  is  an  endeavor  to  find  an  answer  to  an  inde- 
finite number  of  hypothetical  cases.  The  courts  endeavor  to  find  an 
answer  to  a  single  concrete  case  that  has  arisen  in  the  past.  This 
characteristic  of  common  law  has  the  inconvenience  that  a  point  of 
law  may  long  be  uncertain  for  lack  of  parties  willing  to  litigate  it.  It 
is  especially  inconvenient  in  America,  where  the  constitutionality  of 
a  statute  remains  to  be  determined  until  litigation  arises.  But  this 
inconvenience  has  not  occasioned  any  change  in  the  theory  of  the 
common  law. 

Dealing  with  facts  alone,  the  common  law  does  not  judge  of  un- 
expressed thoughts,  theories,  or  opinions.  The  year  before  Calvin's 
Case  was  decided.  Lord  Coke  wrote,  "The  Lords  of  the  Council  of 
Whitehall  demanded  of  Popham,  Chief  Justice,  and  myself,  upon 
motion  made  by  the  Commons  in  Parliament,  in  what  cases  the 
Ordinary  may  examine  any  person  ex  officio  upon  oath ;  and  upon  good 
consideration  and  in  view  of  our  books,  we  answered  to  the  Lords 
of  the  Council  at  another  day  in  the  Council  Chamber,  that  'No 
man  ecclesiastical  or  temporal  shall  be  examined  upon  secret  thoughts 
of  his  heart,  or  of  his  secret  opinion;  but  something  ought  to  be 
objected  to  against  him  which  he  hath  spoken  or  done.'"  (Oath 
Ex  Officio,  12  Rep.  2629  (1607). 

A  second  characteristic  of  the  common  law  is  its  adaptability 
within  rigid  limits.  "The  most  distinctively  English  trait  of  our 
medieval  law  is  its '  formulary  system '  of  actions. "  (2  P.  &  M.  Hist. 
E.  L.  556.)  Lord  Ellesmere  touches  upon  the  elasticity  of  the 
ancient  common  law  where  in  the  case  of  need  a  new  writ  could  be 
framed  in  Chancery  so  that  no  one  need  depart  without  remedy. 
But  it  was  now  the  "  closed  cycle  of  original  suits,  the  catalogue  of 
forms  of  action  to  which  naught  but  statute  could  make  addition." 
(Mait.  Ed.  Bract.  N.  B.  vol.  i,  p.  6.)  "  It  were  better  to  live  under  a 
certain  known  law  though  hard  sometimes  in  a  few  cases  than  to  be 
subjected  to  the  alterable  discretion  of  any  judge,"  said  Chief  Justice 
Popham  in  commendation  of  the  law  of  England  in  his  opinion  before 
the  Lord's  Committee.  (2  How.  St.  Tr.  569.)  The  litigant  could 
choose  a  definite  weapon,  but  at  his  peril.  The  judges  were  passive 
if  he  erred.  "  That  is  part  of  the  fundamental  methods  of  the  com- 
mon law;  the  party  can  have  the  law's  help  only  by  helping  himself 
first.  On  these  terms  and  not  otherwise  it  is  open  to  all."  (Sir 
Frederick  Pollock,  "  Ex.  of  the  Common  Law,"  14  Col.  Law  Rev.  20.) 
The  courts  did  not  necessarily  initiate  proceedings  even  in  the  case 
of  crimes.  In  legal  controversies  the  choice  of  weapons  was  large, 
and  within  their  limits  the  common  law  could  deal  with  any  matter, 
simple  or  complex,  and  with  any  party,  whether  single  or  many, 
and  could  reduce  all  litigation  to  the  simple  formula,  Command  A 


CHARACTERISTICS   OF  THE  COMMON   LAW       277 

that  without  delay  he  render  a  certain  thing  to  B  or  do  full  right  to  B. 
Calvin's  Case  neatly  illustrates  this  adaptabiUty.  By  a  writ  of  assize 
and  a  demurrer  the  whole  matter  was  capable  of  consideration  and 
settlement. 

A  third  characteristic  of  the  common  law  is  its  generality.  No  one 
was  above  the  law,  and  every  man,  whatever  his  rank,  under  the  same 
circumstances,  was  subject  to  the  same  law  and  in  the  same  courts. 
The  ancient  law  has  been  stated  in  the  thirteenth  century  in  the 
Statute  of  Marlborough  (1267) :  "  All  persons  as  well  of  high  as  of  low 
estate  shall  receive  justice  in  the  King's  Courts."  Of  this  Coke  says 
(2  Inst.  103),  "This  is  the  golden  met- wand  that  the  law  appointeth 
to  measure  the  cases  of  all  and  singular  persons,  high  and  low,  to 
have  and  receive  justice  in  the  King's  Courts."  His  added  words, 
"  For  the  King  hath  distributed  his  judicial  power  to  several  courts 
of  justice,  and  courts  of  justice  ought  to  determine  all  causes,  and 
that  all  private  revenges  bee  avoided"  (see  also  4  Inst.  71),  suggest 
Sir  Frederick  Pollock's  generalization,  not  wholly  in  point  in  this 
connection,  but  conveniently  noted  here,  "The  King's  Courts,  at 
the  outset  of  their  career,  came  under  a  rule  which  we  shall  find  to 
run  through  the  whole  of  our  legal  history  and  never  to  have  been 
neglected  with  impunity.  It  may  be  expressed  thus:  Extraordinary 
jurisdiction  succeeds  only  by  becoming  ordinary.  By  this  we  mean 
not  only  that  the  judgment  and  remedies  which  were  once  matters 
of  grace  have  become  matters  of  common  right,  but  the  right  must 
be  done  according  to  the  fundamental  ideas  of  English  justice." 
{"  Expansion  of  the  C.  L."  14  Col.  L.  Rev.  17.)  King  James  claimed 
that  he  had  not  delegated  all  his  powers  as  a  law-giver.  Lord  Elles- 
mere  argued  that  his  proclamation  controlled  Calvin's  Case,  summariz- 
ing it  as  follows:  "So  now  if  this  question  seems  difficult,  that 
neither  direct  law,  nor  examples,  nor  precedents,  nor  application  of 
like  cases,  nor  discourse  of  reason,  nor  the  grave  opinion  of  the 
learned  and  reverend  judges,  can  resolve  it,  here  is  a  certain  rule,  how 
both  by  the  civile  law  and  the  ancient  common  lawe  of  England  it 
may  and  ought  to  be  decided;  that  is,  by  a  sentence  of  the  most 
religious,  learned, -and  judicious  King  that  ever  this  kingdom  or 
island  had."  (2  H.  St.  L.  693.)  Lord  EUesmere  again  argued  on  the 
same  line  two  years  later  in  the  Case  of  Proclamations.  (12  Rep.  74.) 

One  other  point  needs  to  be  referred  to.  James,  the  year  prior 
to  Calvin's  Case,  had  claimed  that  "  the  judges  were  but  the  delegates 
of  the  King,  and  the  King  may  take  what  causes  he  should  please 
to  determine,  from  the  determination  of  the  judges  and  may  deter- 
mine them  himself."  (12  Rep.  63.)  But  the  common  law  has  settled 
that  the  judges  are  more  than  delegates,  and  that  power  once  im- 
parted to  them  will  not  return  to  the  King. 

A  fourth  characteristic  of  the  common  law  is  that  the  proceedings 


278  HISTORY  OF   LAW 

in  the  courts  are  public.  In  this  regard  there  was  a  distinction  in 
Lord  Coke's  time  between  criminal  and  civil  proceedings.  Of  the 
former  it  may  be  said  that  when  the  colonists  came  to  America 
a  prisoner  was  kept  in  confinement  more  or  less  secret  till  his  trial 
and  could  not  prepare  for  his  defense.  He  had  no  counsel  either 
before  or  at  the  trial.  At  the  trial  there  were  no  rules  of  evidence  as 
we  understand  the  expression,  and  the  accused  could  not  call  wit- 
nesses in  his  own  behalf.  (1  Stephens's  Hist.  Crim.  Law  of  Eng., 
350.)  But  of  civil  causes,  as  Lord  Coke  said,  "All  causes  ought  to 
be  heard,  ordered,  and  determined  before  the  judges  of  the  King's 
Court  openly  in  the  King's  Courts,  whither  all  persons  may  resort, 
and  in  no  chambers  or  other  private  places;  for  the  judges  are  not 
judges  of  chambers,  but  of  courts,  and  therefore  in  open  court  where 
the  parties'  councell  and  attorneys  attend,  ought  orders,  rules, 
awards,  and  judgements  to  be  made  and  given,  and  not  in  chambers 
and  other  private  places,  where  a  man  may  lose  his  cause,  or  receive 
great  prejudice,  or  delay  in  his  absence  for  want  of  defense.  Nay, 
the  judge  that  ordereth  or  ruleth  a  cause  in  his  chambers,  though 
his  order  or  rule  be  just,  yet  offendeth  he  the  law  because  he  doth  it 
not  in  court."  (2  Inst.  103.) 

It  is  not  merely  for  the  public  good  that  the  English  secured  a  pub- 
lic trial  for  civil  and  criminal  causes,  inestimable  as  is  this  feature  of 
the  common  law.  But  all  proceedings  must  be  open;  in  some  cases 
they  are  too  open.  But  the  general  advantage  outweighs  this  defect. 
But  there  is  another  aspect  to  this  subject,  namely  the  educative.  The 
educational  advantage  to  the  public  I  consider  trifling  in  civil  cases. 
But  the  educational  advantage  to  the  bar  and  to  students  is  well 
stated  by  Coke.  "  It  is  one  amongst  others  of  the  great  honours  of  the 
common  law  that  cases  of  great  difficulty  are  never  adjudged  or 
resolved  in  tenebris  or  sub  silentio  suppressis  rationibus  ;  but  in  open 
court  and  there  upon  solemn  and  elaborate  arguments,  by  counsel 
learned  of  either  party;  and  after  that  at  the  bench  by  the  judges, 
where  they  argue  seriatim  upon  certain  days  openly  and  purposely 
fixed,  declaring  at  large  the  authorities,  reasons,  and  causes  of  their 
judgments  and  resolutions  in  every  such  particular  case  (habet  enim 
necsio  quid  energiae  viva  vox) ;  a  reverend  and  honorable  proceeding 
in  law,  a  grateful  satisfaction  to  the  parties,  and  a  great  instruction 
and  direction  to  the  attentive  and  studious  hearers."  (9  Rep.  Pref. 
p.  38.) 

A  fifth  characteristic  of  the  common  law  is  that  in  deciding  ques- 
tions of  law  the  judges  are  controlled  by  statute;  in  the  absence  of 
statute,  by  precedents  or  custom;  and  in  the  absence  of  both,  or 
if  the  precedents  conflict,  by  their  own  reason.  No  reported  case 
up  to  this  time  so  fully  discusses  this  proposition  as  Calvin's  Case;  no 
more  novel  case  could  be  devised.    "The  case  is  rare  and  new,"  said 


CHARACTERISTICS   OF  THE  COMMON   LAW        279 

Lord  Ellesmere.  It  was  admitted  ou  all  hands  that  it  was  a  case  of 
first  impression.  Lord  Coke  spoke  of  it  as  being  "  Such  a  one  as  the 
eye  of  the  law,  our  books  and  book  cases,  never  saw;  as  the  ears  of 
our  law  (our  reporters)  never  heard  of;  nor  the  mouth  of  the  law, 
for  jvdex  est  lex  loquens,  the  judges,  our  forefathers  of  the  law  never 
tasted;  I  say  such  &  one  as  the  stomach  of  the, law,  our  exquisite 
and  perfect  records  of  pleadings,  entries,  and  judgments,  never 
digested."    (7  Rep.  4a.) 

It  will  be  instructive  to  examine  Calvin's  Case  with  reference  to 
two  points,  one,  its  treatment  of  the  law  of  nature,  the  other  the 
source  to  which  lawyers  in  the  time  of  Coke  could  look  for  a  standard 
of  justice  in  the  absence  of  precedent. 

In  committee  in  the  House  of  Commons  Sir  Edwin  Sandes  showed 
that  this  case  was  proper  to  be  consorted  with  the  law  of  nations 
which  is  called  "  jus  gentium  ";  for  there  being  no  precedent  for  it  in 
the  law  "lex  deficit"  and  " defidente  consuetudine  recurratur  ad  ra- 
tionem  naturalem"  and  ''  defidente  lege  recurritur  ad  consuetudinem," 
which  ratio  naturalis  is  the  law  of  nations,  called  jus  gentium.  (Moore, 
790;  S.  C.  2  How.  St.  Tr.  563.) 

By  "ratio  naturalis"  Sir  Edwin  meant  natural  law,  using  the  term 
to  signify  "  common  sense  "  as  explained  by  Mr.  Brice.  (Essays  in 
Juris,  p.  587.)  In  the  argument  in  Exchequer  Chamber,  Bacon, 
Solicitor-General,  said  that  the  common  law  was  founded  on  and 
favored  by  the  law  of  nature;  that  all  civil  laws  are  to  be  taken 
strictly  where  they  abridge  the  law  of  nature;  and  that  as  by  the 
law  of  nature  all  men  are  naturalized  one  toward  the  other,  the 
presumption  was  that  Calvin  by  the  law  of  nature  was  not  an  alien 
in  England.  Bacon  uses  the  term  law  of  nature  in  the  sense  of 
natural  or  physical  law  and  not  in  the  sense  used  by  Sandes. 

The  Lord  Chancellor  evidently  had  heard  the  argument  of  Sandes, 
for  he  says,  "It  is  truly  saide  by  a  learned  gentleman  of  the  lower 
house,  'defidente  lege  recurrendum  est  consuetudinem  defidente  con- 
suetudine recurrendum  ad  rationem. ' "  (2  How.  St.  Tr.  672.)  But 
Lord  Ellesmere 's  conclusion  is  that  the  reason  to  which  one  finally 
must  resort  is  not  "  the  collective  reason  of  civilized  mankind, "  but 
that  found  only  in  those  having  four  special  qualities;  namely,  age, 
learning,  experience,  and  authority  to  speak.  (2  How.  St.  Tr.  686.) 
Lord  Ellesmere  has  departed  now  from  the  theory  of  the  law  of 
nature  of  Sandes  to  that  theory  which  treats  natural  reason  as  reason 
of  the  expert.  Lord  Coke  disapproved  of  the  proposition  of  Sandes 
which  he  put  in  the  form  that,  for  want  of  written  law  and  of  pre- 
cedent, we  are  driven  to  reason,  commenting  upon  it  as  follows:  "If 
the  said  imaginative  rule  be  rightly  and  legally  understood,  it  may 
stand  for  Truth;  for  if  you  intend  ratio  for  the  legal  and  profound 
reason  of  such  as  by  diligent  study  and  long  experience  and  observa- 


280  HISTORY  OF   LAW 

tion  are  so  learned  in  the  law  of  this  Realm,  as  out  of  the  reason  of 
the  same,  they  can  rule  the  case  in  question,  in  that  sense,  the  rule 
is  true;  but  if  it  be  intended  of  the  reason  of  the  wisest  man  that 
professeth  not  the  law  of  England  (then  I  say)  the  rule  is  absurd  and 
dangerous."  (7  Rep.  19a.)  Not  even  the  King,  the  source  of  justice, 
could  decide  by  his  reason,  as  Lord  Coke  had  told  James  the  year 
before,  for  "His  Majesty  was  not  learned  in  the  Laws  of  his  Realm 
of  England,  and  causes  which  concern  the  life,  or  inheritance,  or  goods, 
or  fortune  of  his  subject  are  not  to  be  decided  by  natural  reason, 
but  by  the  artificial  reason  and  judgment  of  law,  which  act  is  an  act 
which  requires  long  study  and  experience,  before  that  a  man  can 
attain  to  the  cognizance  of  it."  (12  Rep.  65.)  And  even  the  learned 
in  the  law,  in  Lord  Coke's  opinion,  could  not  decide  difficult  cases 
without  argument  in  open  court,  "  where  Almighty  God  openeth  and 
enlargeth  the  understanding  of  the  desirous  of  justice  and  right." 
(Rep.  Pref.  p.  37.) 

These  extracts  show  the  ambiguity  in  the  use  of  the  term  law  of 
nature  and  that  even  the  judges  were  uncertain  whether  they  could 
find  assistance  in  the  law  of  nature  or  reason  and  what  the  meaning 
of  reason  was.  Coke's  theory  is  that  in  the  absence  of  precedent,  the 
standard  of  justice,  as  in  art,  when  it  has  become  developed,  becomes 
that  of  the  expert.  This  tends  to  fix  an  arbitrary  standard  and  to 
prevent  progress  or  flexibility.  As  Professor  Gray  truly  says,  "  Thus 
to  limit  jurisprudence  is  to  take  from  it  its  chief  glory.  The  supposed 
immutability  of  its  principles  was  what  once  gave  it  its  dignity  and 
charm;  to-day  it  owes  them  rather  to  its  possibilities  and  prospect 
of  boundless  development."  ("Gen.  Definitions  in  Jurisprudence," 
6  Harv.  Law  Rev.  21,  28.) 

There  is  another  principle  in  Calvin's  Case,  namely,  that  the  use 
of  precedent  had  become  established  in  Coke's  day,  although  the 
number  of  precedents  cited  in  that  case  should  be  taken  as  excep- 
tional rather  than  as  illustrating  the  normal  practice.  Judges  in  the 
time  of  Coke  were  accustomed  to  cite  authorities  by  way  of  "  orna- 
menting discourse"  as  well  as  by  way  of  authority,  and  in  Calvin's 
Case  they  seem  to  compete  in  displaying  general  as  well  as  pro- 
fessional erudition.  In  Moore's  report  of  the  proceedings  in  Parlia- 
ment, he  cites  Statutes,  Year-Books,  Fleta,  Littleton,  and  Dyer.  In 
Bacon's  argument,  besides  these,  he  refers  to  Coke's  Reports,  Plow- 
den,  Bracton,  Fitzherbert,  Stamford,  Psalms,  Genesis,  Aristotle,  and 
Xenophon.  Lord  EUesmere,  besides  referring  to  the  foregoing,  cites 
the  Register,  Glanvil,  Britton,  Lambard,  Blackwood,  Hingham,  the 
Civil  Law,  Ulpian,  Tertullian,  St.  Augustine,  Thomas  Aquinas,  St. 
Bernard,  St.  Gregory,  Ezekiel,  Esaias,  St.  John,  St.  Paul,  Proverbs, 
Lucretius,  Horace,  Livy,  and  Cicero.  Coke  refers  to  authorities  more 
than  two  hundred  and  fifty  times,  and  besides  most  of  the  foregoing 


CHARACTERISTICS  OF   THE  COMMON  LAW        281 

vouches  the  laws  of  Edward  I  and  of  William  II,  Rolls  of  Court 
and  of  Parliament,  Book  of  Entries,  Skeene,  Bacon,  Law  of  Nature, 
Broke's  Abridgment,  Doctor  and  Student,  Virgil,  Tully,  Romans, 
and  the  Acts  of  the  Apostles.  An  interesting  picture  is  suggested 
where  in  his  report  he  says,  "  and  Coke,  Chief  Justice  of  the  Court 
of  Common  Pleas,  cited  a  ruled  case  out  of  Hingham's  report, 
tempore  E.  1,  which  in  his  argument  he  showed  in  court  written  in 
parchment  in  the  ancient  hand  of  that  time"  (7  Rep.  9b),  "which 
afterwards  the  Lord  Chancellor  and  the  Chief  Justice  of  the  King's 
Bench,  having  copies  of  the  said  ancient  report,  affirmed  in  their 
arguments."  (7  Rep.  10a.)  Authenticity  of  report  counted  as  part 
of  its  authority.  And  again  where  he  saj^s  "  and  so  it  was  in  Perkin 
Warbeck's  Case  —  and  this  appeareth  in  the  book  of  Griffith,  At- 
torney General,  by  an  extract  out  of  the  book  of  Hobart,  Attorney 
General  to  King  Henry  7."   (7  Rep.  6b.) 

A  sixth  characteristic  of  the  common  law  is  seen  in  its  judgments 
when  contrasted  with  legislation  proper. 

The  judgment  in  Calvin's  Case  in  the  Exchequer  Chamber  was 
that  the  plea  of  alienage  was  not  sufficient  in  law  to  bar  the  plaintiff, 
and  that  defendant  further  answer.  This  judgment  by  indirection 
had  all  the  effect  of  an  act  of  Parliament,  naturalizing  all  the  post- 
nati  of  Scotland.  If  any  other  post-natus  had  brought  a  similar 
action,  the  Court  of  King's  Bench  would  have  followed  Calvin's 
Case,  and  so  on  indefinitely.  The  same  result  followed  as  would  have 
been  accomplished  if  Parliament  had  enacted  the  prop'jsed  bill 
naturalizing  the  post-nati. 

It  remains  to  contrast  judgments  in  common  law  with  legislation 
proper  in  the  time  of  Lord  Coke.  Legislation  then  was  not  strictly  con- 
fined to  the  King  and  Parliament.  Other  competitors  were  the  King 
in  Council,  Resolutions  of  either  House  of  Parliament,  Electors 
of  Parliament  by  vote,  and  the  law  courts  themselves.  (See  Dicey, 
Constitution,  pp.  48-58.)  This  in  part  explains  the  absence  from  the 
Statutes  of  the  Realm  of  much  of  that  general  legislation  which 
afterwards  made  acts  of  Parliament  so  voluminous.  But  speaking 
of  Parliament  by  way  of  contrast  with  the  courts,  the  former  was 
composed  of  representatives  interested  in  the  subject-matter  of 
legislation.  The  courts  were  operated  by  officers  who  were  disin- 
terested and  impartial.  Representatives  in  Parliament  were  chosen 
from  the  country  at  large.  The  "  properties  a  Parliament  man  should 
have,"  as  given  by  Coke,  show  the  difference  in  theory  between  legis- 
lative function  in  his  day  and  in  modern  times.  He  should  be,  Lord 
Coke  says,  without  maUce,  rancor,  heat,  or  envy;  he  should  be  con- 
stant, inflexible,  and  not  to  be  bowed  or  turned  from  the  right  either 
for  fear,  reward,  or  favor,  nor  in  judgment  respect  any  person;  and, 
third,  of    a  ripe  memory,  that  they  remembering  perils  passed, 


282  HISTORY  OF  LAW 

might  prevent  dangers  to  come,  as  in  the  roll  of  Parliament  appear- 
eth.  (4  Inst.  3.)  The  legislator  then  was  a  man  of  courage  rather 
than  general  training.  But  the  judges  were  selected  from  a  body 
of  professional  men  and  were  experts.  No  person  or  body  had  the 
right  to  override  or  set  aside  an  Act  of  Parliament  (Dicey,  Law 
of  the  Constitution,  p.  38) ,  unless  within  the  limitation  suggested  by 
Lord  Coke  (Dr.  Bonham's  Case,  8  Rep.  107a,  118a,  — 1609),  which 
does  not  seem  to  have  been  acted  upon.  However,  there  is  apparent 
the  same  distrust  by  judges  of  popular  legislation  and  reformation 
of  the  common  law  that  is  seen  throughout  the  reports  down  to 
modem  times.  As  Coke  frequently  said,  it  is  a  rule  of  policy  and  law 
that  change  of  the  law  is  to  be  avoided.  (4  Rep.  Pref.  p.  9.)  If 
Calvin's  Case  represented  the  theory  of  the  time,  the  legislative 
function  of  the  court  practically  was  quite  equivalent'to  that  of  Par- 
liament. Commons  had  refused  to  enact  a  general  law,  but  the 
judgment  in  the  King's  Bench,  with  the  approbation  of  the  King, 
seemingly  accomplished  the  same  result. 

Turning  now  to  the  colonists,  we  find  certain  reasons  why  the 
common  law  should  have  continued  its  course  unimpaired,  and  others 
that  tended  to  modify  it.  Whatever  may  have  been  the  theory  in 
1600  as  to  the  law  the  colonists  took  with  them  to  New  England, 
probably  the  provisions  in  the  Charter  of  Virginia  of  1606  were  in- 
serted as  a  result  of  a  discussion  as  to  the  naturalization  of  foreign- 
born  subjects,  by  Lord  Coke,  who  was  then  Attorney-General,  and  it 
is  thought  drafted  the  charter.  The  provision  therein  whereby  James 
conferred  "all  liberties,  franchises,  and  immunities  within  any  of 
our  other  dominions  "  upon  the  colonists,  at  a  later  time  was  claimed 
to  confer  the  rights  of  common  law  on  the  colonists  and  their  children. 
The  popular  antipathy  to  the  common  law  in  most  of  the  colonists  in 
their  early  history  cannot  have  been  a  sudden  matter,  but  probably 
expressed  the  popular  sentiment  expressed  in  debates  in  Commons 
and  in  the  statutes  in  the  reigns  of  Elizabeth  and  James.  For  years 
in  the  colonies,  there  was  almost  uniform  prejudice  against  lawyers. 
There  was  a  tendency  to  revert  to  popular  forms  in  administering 
justice.  The  standard  was  "God's  Law,"  or  the  "  Law  of  Nature." 
The  jury  system  for  a  time  was  rejected  in  Connecticut  and  adopted 
in  a  modified  form  in  other  colonies.  The  literature  of  the  civil  law 
was  well  represented  in  colonial  libraries.  As  Dr.  Reinsch  says  in  his 
thesis  on  the  English  Common  Law  in  the  Colonies  (Bulletin  Univ. 
of  Wis.  no.  31,  Mad.  Wis.  1899):  "The  process  which  we  may  call 
the  reception  of  the  English  Common  Law  by  the  colonies  was  not 
so  simple  as  the  legal  theory  would  lead  us  to  assume.  While  their 
general  legal  conceptions  were  conditioned  by  and  their  terminology 
derived  from  the  common  law,  the  early  colonists  were  far  from 
applying  it  as  a  technical  system ;  they  often  ignored  it,  or  denied  its 


CHARACTERISTICS  OF   THE   COMMON  LAW        283 

subsidiary  force;  and  they  consciously  departed  from  many  of  its 
most  essential  principles.  This  was  but  natural;  the  common  law 
was  a  technical  system  adapted  to  a  settled  community;  it  took 
the  colonies  some  time  to  reach  the  stage  of  social  organization 
which  the  common  law  expressed;  then  gradually  more  and  more  of 
its  technical  rules  were  received."     (p.  58.) 

After  being  dormant  for  nearly  one  hundred  and  jBfty  years,  the 
vital  power  of  common  law  displayed  itself  from  1750  onward.  At 
first  mainly  on  its  public  side,  as  a  basis  for  argument  in  the  appeals 
for  civil  liberty;  later,  in  its  general  aspect,  in  the  local  courts  under 
the  influence  of  lawyers  trained  in  the  Inns  of  Court.  It  would  be 
hard  to  overestimate  the  influence  in  the  colonies  of  lawyers  trained 
in  these  Inns.  Winthrop,  Bellingham,  Dudley,  and  Ward  all  had 
studied  law  in  the  Inns,  and  the  recent  catalogue  of  notable  Middle 
Templars  shows  upon  its  list  the  following  who  signed  the  Declara- 
tion of  Independence:  Charles  Carroll  of  Carrollton,  Middleton, 
Rutledge,  McKeen,  and  John  Dickenson  and  Arthur  Lee.  The 
continual  discussion  and  publications  of  such  men  as  these,  not 
only  trained  them,  but  prepared  the  public  for  the  federal  laws  and 
constitution  and  the  state  constitutions. 

At  the  end  of  three  hundred  years,  the  resemblances  between  the 
common  law  in  America  and  its  parent  in  England  are  greater 
than  the  differences,  and  the  differences  are  rather  in  degree  than  in 
kind.  Each  has  borrowed  from  the  other's  statute  law;  the  American 
more  from  the  English  unwritten  law.  The  common  law  in  America 
has  the  same  adaptability  and  generality,  but  publicity  is  greater 
here  both  in  civil  and  in  criminal  cases.  In  the  former  there  is  an 
excess  of  publicity,  both  in  the  progress  of  trials  and  through  the 
newspapers.  In  jury  trials  the  American  courts  are  more  dilatory 
and  more  spectacular  than  the  English  courts.  In  some  of  the  West- 
ern states  a  criminal  trial  gives  attorneys  an  opportunity  to  adver- 
tise that  is  "worked  for  all  that  it  is  worth."  There  is  much  less 
freedom  of  comment  on  evidence  and  law  by  the  judges  in  America 
than  in  England,  and  the  relation  between  the  judges  and  the  jury 
is  less  close.  In  two  respects  there  has  been  a  departure  from  the 
English  theory.  These  are  the  theory  of  constitutional  law,  espe- 
cially as  to  the  power  of  the  court  to  pass  on  the  constitutionality 
of  statutes,  and  in  the  source  of  grounds  for  decision  by  the  judges. 
In  the  latter  case  in  some  of  the  states  there  seems  to  have  been 
developed  a  substantially  different  theory  from  that  shown  in  the 
discussion  of  Calvin's  Case. 

As  I  have  tried  to  show,  the  factors  that  have  contributed  to 
make  the  characteristics  of  the  common  law  were  popular  and 
professional;  the  same  factors  are  seen  in  America.  At  the  close  of 
the  Revolution  there  arose  need  of  a  system  of  law  in  each  of  the 


284  HISTORY   OF  LAW 

states.  There  was  uniform  agreement  that  the  shortest  cut  to  pro- 
viding one  was  to  adopt  the  common  law  of  England.  This  was 
done  in  all  the  states,  with  the  limitations  that  it  was  not  to  apply 
when  inconsistent  with  local  limitations  or  conditions.  This  excep- 
tion gave  the  judges  a  discretion  in  applying  common  law  that  has 
tended  to  establish  a  practice  of  departing  from  a  rigid  rule  or  pre- 
cedent, and  instead  to  apply  a  standard  suggested  by  the  needs 
of  the  people  or  local  conditions.  A  second  influence  came  from  the 
different  social  position  of  lawyers  in  America.  In  England  the  bar 
was  allied  with  the  Crown.  In  America  the  sovereign  power  after 
the  Revolution  resided  in  the  people.  This  made  the  English  lawyers 
more  conservative.  In  America,  while  they  were  an  aristocracy, 
they  were  in  touch  with  the  people  and  responsive  to  popular  ideas. 
A  third  factor  is  that  the  judges  in  many  states  are  elected  by  the 
people  and  inevitably  are  affected  by  the  interests  of  their  electors 
more  than  by  an  abstract  system  of  law.  A  fourth  influence  is  the 
general  indifference  of  Americans  as  to  authority  from  the  past.  And 
a  fifth  is  the  American  characteristic  to  ask  for  results  that  are 
practical  and  tangible  rather  than  those  that  support  a  theory. 

There  is  a  considerable  but  not  yet  classified  body  of  decisions 
that  illustrates  this  tendency  of  the  courts  to  adapt  the  law  to  popular 
need  and  local  conditions.  One  case  only  will  be  chosen  to  illustrate 
this.  It  is  the  case  of  Katz  v.  Walkinshaw  (141  Calif.  116).  Before 
speaking  of  this  case,  it  is  necessary  to  refer  to  the  case  of  Lux  v. 
Haggen  (69  Calif.  255).  The  question  in  the  latter  case  was  whether 
an  upper  appropriator  of  water,  which  he  applied  to  general  and 
public  use,  had  a  better  right  to  the  water  of  the  stream  than  a  lower 
and  earUer  riparian  proprietor.  It  was  contended  that  the  public 
welfare  demanded  that  the  later  right  should  prevail  over  the  earlier. 
There  was  a  California  statute  adopting  the  common  law.  The  local 
arid  conditions,  the  necessity  for  irrigation,  were  urged  as  reasons 
for  modifying  the  rule  of  the  common  law  restricting  the  taking  of 
water  from  a  stream  to  a  reasonable  use  measured  by  the  needs  of 
other  riparian  proprietors.  But  to  this  proposition  Judge  McKinstry 
replied,  "While  the  argument  ah  inconvenienti  should  have  its 
proper  weight  in  ascertaining  what  the  law  is,  there  is  no  'public 
policy '  which  can  empower  the  courts  to  disregard  law;  or  because 
of  an  asserted  benefit  to  many  persons  (in  itself  doubtful)  to  over- 
throw settled  law.  This  court  has  no  power  to  legislate,  especially 
not  to  legislate  in  such  manner  as  to  deprive  citizens  of  their  vested 
rights."  (69  Calif.  299.)  "We  know  of  no  decision  which  intimates 
that  a  difference  in  climatic  or  geographical  conditions  may  operate 
to  transfer  a  right  of  property  from  those  in  whom  a  right  of  property 
is  vested  by  the  common  law."  (69  Calif.  306.)  The  later  case  of 
Katz  V.  Walkinshaw  raised  a  question  as  to  rights  in  percolating 


CHARACTERISTICS  OF  THE   COMMON  LAW        285 

water  and  seems  to  have  been  decided  upon  a  different  principle, 
and  one  which  illustrates  the  proposition  I  have  stated.  The  ques- 
tion was  whether  an  owner  of  land  could  pump  percolating  water 
from  his  land  and  sell  it  for  a  general  use  on  remote  land,  if  thereby 
he  deprived  the  adjoining  landowner  of  percolating  water  in  his 
land  needed  for  use  on  his  land.  By  the  common  law,  each  party  had 
an  equal  right  to  percolating  water  without  restrictions  from  the 
corresponding  right  of  the  other.  But  the  court  held  that  local 
conditions  required  a  departure  from  the  common  law,  and  on  the 
principle  of  utility  —  of  a  fair  use  of  the  water,  so  as  to  secure  the 
greatest  benefit  to  the  greatest  number  —  decided  that  the  defendant 
could  not  sell  the  water,  if  thereby  he  exercised  an  unreasonable  use 
measured  by  the  needs  of  the  adjoining  plaintiff.  It  would  seem 
that  the  rule  of  property  that  probably  existed  in  California  as  to 
percolating  water  was  departed  from  in  this  case,  and  in  its  place 
one  laid  down  based  upon  public  utility. 

In  this  case,  the  court  adopts  the  view  that  the  law  is  a  practical 
science  to  be  applied  so  as  to  conserve  the  interests  of  the  people 
to  whom  existence  is  the  main  problem  of  life,  and  not  that  it  is 
a  philosophical  theory  to  be  applied  according  to  the  wishes  of  the 
expert  and  to  conserve  an  ideal  and  immutable  professional  standard. 

This  theory  of  utility  was  advanced  by  the  late  Austin  Abbott  in 
a  paper  read  before  the  section  of  legal  education  of  the  American 
Bar  Association  in  1893,  in  which  he  spoke  as  follows:  "Existing 
American  jurisprudence  looks  to  the  actual  situation  of  affairs.  All 
the  phases  of  jurisprudence  treated  in  books  are  tributary  to  the 
wisdom  and  caution  necessary  in  working  out  the  development  — 
now  slowly  going  on,  whether -we  recognize  it  or  not  —  [of]  the  juris- 
prudence of  utility,  a  jurisprudence  which  recognizes  the  unspeakable 
value  of  all  the  traditions  of  the  past,  and  respecting  the  limit  of 
statutory  command,  seeks  also  for  the  premises  to  be  found  in  the 
welfare  of  the  community,  and  reasons  from  them,  too,  in  ascertain- 
ing what  premises  are  suitable  to  be  received  as  governing  the  ad- 
ministration of  law  among  our  people.  It  would  be  easy  to  show  that 
this  change  in  the  conception  of  law  is  necessitated  by  our  condition, 
and  that  its  future  advance  is  inevitable,"  (Vol.  16,  Rep.  Am.  Bar 
Ass'n,  p,  374.) 

It  remains  to  contrast  the  legislative  and  judicial  functions  in 
America  at  the  present  time.* 

The  legislative  functions  are  discharged  by  representatives.  They 
make  general  laws  for  future  pubUc  needs.  To  insure  this,  the  repre- 
sentation is  broad;  all  classes  are  concerned  and  should  have  a  voice. 
There  is  no  test  of  fitness  excepting  age  and  citizenship;  and  broad 

*  On  the  distinction  between  the  legislative  and  judicial  functions,  see  the 
admirable  paper  by  Reuben  C.  Benton,  8  Am.  Bar  Ass'n  Rep.  261  (1885). 


286  HISTORY  OF   LAW 

representation  is  not  inconsistent  with  a  low  grade  of  intelligence. 
The  representatives  are  directly  interested  in  the  subject-matter  of 
legislation.  They  legislate  for  themselves  and  their  constituents.  In 
a  sense  it  is  optional  whether  the  laws  they  enact  shall  be  obeyed 
or  go  into  desuetude.  The  judicial  functions  are  discharged  by 
representatives.  They  prescribe  a  rule  governing  a  past  concrete 
transaction  between  definite  individuals.  There  is  a  fitness  required 
for  the  discharge  of  this  function  determined  by  education  and  public 
test  at  the  bar.  The  representation  is  narrow  with  a  high  grade  of 
intelligence.  The  judges  are  disinterested  —  they  are  umpires  with 
a  power  behind  them  to  enforce  their  judgment.  The  fundamental 
difference  between  legislative  and  judicial  functions  is  that  the  former 
is  an  effort  to  answer  an  indefinite  number  of  hypothetical  questions 
to  arise  in  the  future  —  the  latter,  a  definite  answer  to  an  existing 
question  raised  in  the  past. 

But  the  tendency  of  modern  American  courts  is  so  to  formulate 
their  judgments  as  to  provide  an  answer  to  hypothetical  questions 
between  future  litigants.  In  this  sense  there  is  a  tendency  on  the 
part  of  the  court  not  merely  to  legislate  specially  but  broadly. 

There  is  a  theory  that  legislation  is  a  conscious  expression  of  the 
jural  needs  of  the  people.  Statutory  laws  are  said  to  be  "  analogous 
to  the  voluntary  resolutions  of  a  person  for  self-improvement."  ^ 

Another  says,  "A  people's  thought,  habit,  will,  and  purpose  infuse 
themselves  into  and  make  the  law."  ' 

This  view  is  consistent  with  compact  and  homogeneous  commun- 
ities where  the  connection  between  the  public  and  the  law-maker  or 
judge  is  close,  but  it  is  submitted  that  in  America,  excepting  on  great 
public  questions  on  which  public  opinion  is  strong,  legislation  does 
not  reflect  public  opinion  and  frequently  is  special  legislation  in 
disguise.  This  is  an  unfortunate  result  of  the  indifference  of  the 
public,  of  our  system  of  legislation,  and  of  "  the  truth  often  illustrated 
that  a  small  body  of  men  deeply  interested  and  able  easily  to  cooper- 
ate is  more  powerful  than  a  vast  body  of  men  less  deeply  interested 
and  unfavorably  circumstanced  for  cooperation."  ' 

It  is  submitted  that  the  same  truth  holds  good  where  a  body  of 
professional  experts  dealing  with  a  special  kind  of  learning  inter- 
venes between  the  public  and  the  expression  of  public  needs  in  the 
courts,  and  that  thereby  the  public  voice  is  not  effective  in  declaring 
its  jural  needs.  It  is  believed  that  the  characteristics  of  law  are 
affected  by  the  source  of  the  law.  This  source  is  either  popular  or 
professional.  The  former  contributes  simplicity,  adaptability,  and 
progress  —  the  latter  technicality,  rigidity,  and  conservatism.     In 

'  Address  of  Mr.  Carter,  President  of  the  Am.  Bar  Ass'n,  1885,  p.  224. 
*  Address  of  Mr.  Tucker,  President  of  the  Am.  Bar  Ass'n,  1893,  p.  206. 
>  Autobiography  of  Herbert  Spencer,  vol.  i,  p.  433.  1 


CHARACTERISTICS  OF  THE  COMMON  LAW       287 

America  law  has  become  a  practical  science,  anci  the  problem  of 
adjusting  the  ideals  of  the  expert  to  the  comprehension  and  needs 
of  the  common  person  is  being  worked  out  with  the  aid  of  the  dis- 
position of  the  American  to  favor  common  sense  rather  than  abstract 
theory. 

It  remains  to  inquire  whether  there  has  been  developed  in  America 
an  entirely  different  system  of  law,  to  ask  whether  there  is  a  system 
of  federal  common  law.  It  is  not  within  the  scope  of  this  paper  to 
try  to  answer  this  question,  even  if  there  were  data  enough  on 
which  to  base  an  answer.  If  the  courts  should  deem  it  necessary  to 
affirm  that  such  a  body  of  law  exists,  —  and  on  the  old  theories  there 
seems  no  difficulty  in  imagining  this,  —  the  gradual  disclosure  of  it 
through  successive  decisions  will  be  one  of  the  most  interesting 
phases  of  the  growth  of  law. 


SECTION  A  — HISTORY  OF  ROMAN  LAW 


SECTION  A  — HISTORY  OF  ROMAN  LAW 


{Hall  11,  September  21,  3  p.  m.) 

Speakers:  Mr.  William  Hepburn  Buckler,  Baltimore,  Md. 
Professor  Munroe  Smith,  Columbia  University. 


THE  RELATIONS  OF  ROMAN  LAW  TO  THE  OTHER  HIS- 
TORICAL SCIENCES 

BY  WILLIAM  HEPBURN  BUCKLER 

[William  Hepburn  Buckler,  member  of  the  Bar,  Baltimore,  Maryland,  b.  Paris, 
France,  1867.  University  of  Cambridge,  1887-91;  B.A.  ibid.  1890;  LL.B. 
ibid.  1891;  University  of  Maryland,  Law  Department,  1893-94.  Member  of 
the  Baltimore  Bar  1894 .  Author  of  History  of  Contract  in  Roman  Law.  Cam- 
bridge, 1893.] 

Our  language  has  been  compared  to  a  vast  museum  filled  with 
historical  monuments  which  are  its  words:  among  these  there  are 
few  more  significant  than  the  word  Jurisprudence.  To  the  Romans 
this  meant  a  knowledge  of  their  own  particular  law,  while  for  us  it 
has  come  to  denote  the  science  of  general  legal  principles.  Thus  it 
confronts  us  as  a  record  of  the  past,  reminding  us  that  though  our 
laws  as  they  stand  may  not  be  of  Rome,  yet  surely  their  foundations 
are  upon  her  holy  hills. 

The  much  abused  quotation  about  Peace  and  her  victories  is 
eminently  applicable  to  that  quiet  but  steady  extension  of  the  legal 
influence  of  Rome  which  is  evidenced  by  the  history,  not  only  of  law 
but  of  other  forms  of  human  activity.  Indeed,  I  think  it  can  be 
shown  that  none  of  the  historical  sciences,  whether  of  Law,  or  of 
Politics,  or  of  Economics,  or  of  Religion,  or  of  Literature,  or  of 
Language,  or  even  of  Art,  lies  wholly  out  of  reach  of  that  mighty 
influence.  In  whichever  of  these  branches  of  learning  a  man  may 
engage,  he  can  fairly  say,  "luris  civilis  nihil  a  me  alienum  puto." 

To  develop  this  proposition  here  with  anything  approaching  to 
completeness  would  be  an  impossible  task.  I  can  only  attempt  to 
indicate  its  outlines,  and  to  bring  out  some  points  of  contact  between 
Roman  law  and  the  other  sciences  commonly  called  historical. 

I 
The  first  to  be  considered  is  the  history  of  Law,  since  here  the 
connection  is,  as  might  be  expected,  more  intimate  than  anywhere 
else.    A  discussion  of  the  influence  of  Roman  law  upon  other  legal 


292  HISTORY   OF   ROMAN   LAW 

systems  must  deal  with  two  classes  of  Western  states:  first,  those 
in  which  this  law  has  survived  down  to  our  own  time  as  the  result 
either  of  inheritance  or  of  what  the  Germans  call  "reception"; 
secondly,  those  like  England  or  the  American  Commonwealth  in 
which  pure  Roman  law  has  been  rejected. 

There  are  indeed  vast  regions  in  which  other  venerable  bodies 
of  law,  such  as  the  Chinese  and  the  Muslim,  have  long  held  sway, 
but  these  we  may  here  disregard,  since  their  history  has  kept  aloof 
from  that  of  Western  law.  We  may  sometimes  have  felt  with  Gibbon 
"  the  hasty  wish  of  exchanging  our  elaborate  jurisprudence  for  the 
simple  and  summary  decree  of  a  Turkish  cadhi,"  but  further  than 
this  we  have  never  gone.  And  the  Eastern  nations,  with  the  single 
recent  exception  of  Japan,  have  on  their  part  done  nothing  to  put 
themselves  in  touch  with  our  Western  legal  systems.  The  only 
direct  effect  they  ever  had  upon  these  was  to  destroy  the  Eastern 
Empire,  and  with  it  the  Roman  law  which  had  flourished  at  Con- 
stantinople for  more  than  a  thousand  years.  We  may  therefore 
confine  our  inquiry  to  the  two  groups  of  Western  states  alread}' 
mentioned. 

Sweeping  generalizations  are  in  history  even  more  odious  than' 
comparisons,  but  I  think  there  is  one  that  can  safely  be  made  as  to 
the  group  of  states  which,  like  France  and  Germany,  have  either 
inherited  or  "  received  "  the  Roman  law.  It  is  that  in  those  states, 
wherever  that  law  was  not  an  actual  relic  of  Roman  rule,  its  suprem- 
acy bas  finally  been  recognized,  not  through  conquest  or  compulsion, 
but  owing  to  the  attraction  of  its  intrinsic  excellence.  The  reception 
of  Roman  law  in  Germany  in  1495  has  been  regarded  as  a  case  of 
official  compulsion.  Recent  research,  however,  has  shown  that  the 
vocahularius  iuris  utriusque,  the  collectio  terminum  legalium,  and 
other  popular  encyclopedias  of  Roman  law  had  a  great  manuscript 
circulation  in  Germany  for  more  than  a  century  before  the  reception, 
and  that  one  of  them  went  through  fifty-two  printed  editions  in  the 
fifty  years  between  1473  and  1523.^  Hence  it  appears  that  when 
Berthold  of  Mainz  proposed  the  establishment  of  the  Reichskam- 
mergericht,  with  its  civilian  doctors  as  judges,  his  action  was  only 
the  outcome  of  a  movement  which  had  long  been  in  silent  preparation. 

The  peaceful  reconquest  of  the  European  continent  by  Roman 
law  began  with  that  revival  of  its  study  in  the  Italian  universities 
at  the  end  of  the  eleventh  century,  which  was  one  of  the  greatest 
eruptions  of  intellectual  energy  that  the  world  has  ever  seen.  It 
maj'^  perhaps  best  be  compared  to  that  enthusiasm  for  the  natural 
sciences  which  began  at  the  end  of  the  eighteenth  century,  which 
Taine  has  described  as  one  of  the  factors  in  the  French  Revolution, 
and  in  the  midst  of  which  we  still  live.  As  biology  and  physics  now 
*  Seckel,  Gesch.  heider  Rechte  im  Mittelalter,  p.  59. 


ROMAN   LAW  —  HISTORICAL   SCIENCES  293 

flourish  because  they  are  popular,  not  because  they  are  compulsory, 
so  did  the  study  of  Roman  law  in  the  Middle  Ages.  And  just  as  there 
are  now  some  who  deplore  that  scientific  men  should  derive  wealth 
from  their  science,  instead  of  being  content  to  pursue  it  from  pure 
love,  so  the  twelfth  century  complained  that  many  cultivated  the 
law,  not  for  its  beauty,  but  for  its  profits.  There  was,  however,  much 
genuine  intellectual  fervor  which  spread  from  Italy  even  to  Paris 
and  Oxford.  That  is  a  pretty  story  and  one  very  characteristic  of 
the  period  which  Professor  Holland  has  preserved,  of  the  two  Frisian 
brothers,  Emo  and  Addo,  taking  turns  at  Oxford  to  sit  up  all  night 
copying  the  law-book  of  Vacarius.^  Peter  of  Blois,  a  Frenchman 
who  had  studied  in  Bologna  under  the  great  Irnerius  and  who  became 
Archdeacon  of  Bath,  informs  us  that  he  used  to  read  the  Code  and 
Digest  for  sheer  enjoyment. "  He  has  even  described  to  us  his  own 
enthusiasm  for  legal  studies,  which  was  doubtless  typical.  "That 
ancient  law, "  he  says,  "with  its  magnificent  furniture  of  words,  had 
powerfully  enticed  me  and  had  intoxicated  my  mind."  ^ 

There  was,  indeed,  some  opposition  to  this  legal  furore,  partly 
because  it  distracted  the  minds  of  the  clergy  from  their  spiritual 
duties,  partly  because  it  was  thought  to  add  to  the  law's  delay, 
and  partly  because  it  conflicted  with  ancient  customs  of  the  land. 
Thus  it  has  been  shown  that  the  famous  prohibition  of  the  teaching 
of  civil  law  at  the  University  of  Paris,  by  Pope  Honorius  III  in 
1219,  was  issued  at  the  request  of  the  French  king,  who  did  not  wish 
his  dominions,  which  like  England  had  their  indigenous  common 
law,  to  be  invaded  by  a  new  and  foreign  legal  system.'  The  Con- 
stitutions of  Clarendon  in  1164  had  represented  a  similar  English 
protest  couched  in  a  different  form. 

But  despite  occasional  checks  the  Roman  law  has,  except  in  the 
case  of  Hungary,  swept  steadily  and  victoriously  over  the  whole 
continent  of  Europe.  This  result  has  been  largely  due  to  the  influence 
in  early  times  of  the  clergy,  the  backbone  of  the  educated  class,  who 
had  in  their  canon  law  a  borrowed  and  dilute  civil  law,  and  who 
also  studied  the  pure  civil  law  with  much  diligence.  In  1245  the 
great  lawyer  Fieschi,  better  known  as  Pope  Innocent  IV,  made 
provision  for  the  teaching  of  Roman  law  at  the  Papal  capital,  and 
his  name  deserves  to  be  particularly  honored  by  students  of  juris- 
prudence, since  he  is  said  on  high  authority  to  have  been  the  first 
jurist  who  distinctly  conceived  the  universitas,  our  corporation,  as 
a  fictitious  person.* 

The  history  of  the  spread  of  Roman  law  throughout  the  Eu- 
ropean continent  and  in  other  parts  of  the  world  ne«d  not  and 

*  English  Hist.  Review,  vol.  vi,  p.  247. 

2  Petrus  Blesensis,  Epist.  26,  in  Migne's  Patrologia,  vol.  207. 
^  Beaune,  Fragments  de  Droit  et  d'Histoire,  p.  97. 

*  Maitland's  preface  to  Gierke's  Political  Theories  of  the  Middle  Ages,  p.  xix. 


294  HISTORY  OF  ROMAN  LAW 

cannot  be  told  here  in  detail:  to  do  so  would  require  a  volume  for 
each  country.  We  all  know  the  result  to  be  that  at  the  present  date, 
notwithstanding  the  rapid  growth  of  our  own  commonwealth, 
more  people  are  living  under  the  legal  system  derived  from  Rome 
than  under  that  derived  from  Westminster  Hall.^  Germany  parted 
company  with  the  Roman  group  in  1900,  but  her  new  imperial 
code  shows  the  influence  of  Roman  conceptions,  and  just  as  the 
New  York  codes  have  not  altogether  banished  Blackstone  from 
New  York,  so  it  can  scarcely  be  expected  that  a  nation  trained  in 
the  Pandekten  will  soon  forget  their  principles.  An  eminent  French 
scholar  has  shown  that  to  understand  fully  the  French  dotal  system 
we  must  go  back  to  the  SC.  VeUeianum.^  And  it  is  well  known 
that  the  Code  Napoleon,  which  in  its  turn  has  had  a  contagious 
influence  somewhat  similar  to  that  of  Justinian,  is  fundamentally 
Roman.  It  is  interesting  to  note  in  passing  that  this  Exposition 
commemorates  among  other  things  the  important  fact  that,  by  the 
cession  of  the  Louisiana  territory,  a  vast  area  was  withdrawn  from 
the  sway  of  that  modern  Roman  code,  though  in  the  state  of  Louisiana 
where  the  Code  Napoleon  had  taken  firm  root,  it  still  continues  to 
flourish. 

There  can  thus  be  no  doubt  that  the  history  of  Roman  is  vitally 
connected  with  that  of  Continental  law.  Indeed,  if  we  adopt  the 
view  of  historic  continuity  which  Freeman  inculcated,  we  may  say 
that  the  history  of  law  on  the  Continent  is  simply  the  history  of 
Roman  law  brought  down  to  the  present  date.  It  need  hardly  be 
said  that  I  have  not  taken  into  account  that  form  of  speculation  on 
absti'act  legal  principles  best  known  by  its  German  name  Naturrecht, 
which  cannot  be  said  to  have  any  historical  connection  with  the 
ius  naturale  of  the  Digest,  and  which  is  quite  un-Roman  both  in  its 
matter  and  in  its  methods.^ 

When  we  turn  to  consider  how  Roman  law  is  related  to  that 
other  great  legal  system  which  was  built  up  in  England,  and  trans- 
planted to  this  country  and  to  her  other  colonies,  we  find  the  sailing 
by  no  means  plain.  In  theory,  of  course,  Roman  law  is  an  absolute 
alien  to  us,  and  our  own  law  has  an  unblemished  Teutonic  pedigree. 
But  we  may  at  once  suspect  some  flaw  in  this  theory  when  we  find 
it  stated  that  in  England  at  the  beginning  of  the  last  century,  in 
the  Spiritual  Courts,  the  Military  and  Admiralty  Courts,  and  the 
courts  of  both  universities,  "the  civil  law  and  its  form  of  legal 
proceedings  greatly  prevail."*  Since  these  may  be  looked  upon  as 
so  many  reservoirs  of  Roman  law,  the  question  is,  did  they  ever  leak? 
Did  the  civil  law,  and  if  so,  how  far,  ever  percolate  through  the  pen 

*  Bryce,  Studies  in  History  and  Jurisprudence,  p.  74, 
^  Gide,  Etude  sur  la  Condition  de  la  Femme,  p.  429. 

'  See  Lorimer's  Institutes  of  Law,  1880. 

*  Butler,  Horae  Juridical  Subsecivae,  p.  77. 


ROMAN   LAW  —  HISTORICAL  SCIENCES  295 

of  text-writers  or  the  mouth  of  judges  into  the  bed-rock  of  common 
law  or  equity  doctrine? 

Sir  H.  Maine  thought  this  had  taken  place  on  a  very  large  scale  at 
an  early  stage  in  English  law  through  Bracton's  borrowing  from 
the  Italian  civilian  Azo,  and  he  accused  the  English  judge  of  having 
made  up  a  third  of  his  treatise  out  of  Roman  law  and  having  palmed 
it  all  off  as  English.  But  this  charge  will  scarcely  hold,  since  Pro- 
fessor Maitland  has  shown  that  Azo  has  supplied  only  one  fifteenth 
and  the  Corpus  luris  only  one  fortieth  of  Bracton's  material.^  The 
fact  is  that  unmistakable  instances  of  the  importation  of  a  Roman 
rule  into  an  English  text  or  an  English  decision  are  very  hard  to  find. 
Sir  Frederick  Pollock  has  found  only  one,  and  Professor  Maitland 
has  mentioned  another;  ^  and  where  such  explorers  have  been  over 
the  ground,  the  treasure  still  unfound  must  indeed  be  insigni- 
ficant. But  there  may  be  smuggling  as  well  as  regular  importation 
of  legal  ideas.  And  this  sort  of  smuggling  may,  as  in  the  case  of 
literary  plagiarism,  be  partly  unconscious  and  therefore  all  the 
harder  to  trace.  A  good  instance  of  the  difficulty  of  ascertaining 
whence  any  given  rule  in  English  law  was  derived  is  the  conflict 
of  high  authorities  respecting  the  origin  of  the  exceptional  liability  of 
common  carriers.  On  this  point  Sir  William  Brett  and  Mr.  Justice 
Story  are  opposed  to  Lord  Cockburn  and  Mr.  Justice  Holmes;  the 
two  former  holding  that  the  rule  of  liability  was  adopted  from  the 
Roman  law,  while  the  two  latter  think  that  it  was  not.' 

The  relation  between  Roman  and  English  law  is  probably  closer 
than  we  think  or  than  we  shall  ever  be  able  to  prove,  because 
it  was,  so  to  speak,  illicit.  This  is  explained  in  the  De  Laudihus 
Legum  Angliae  of  Chancellor  Fortescue.  When  the  Prince  asks  why 
his  ancestors  had  failed  to  introduce  the  civil  law  into  England, 
Fortescue  replies  that  the  English  regarded  it  as  an  instrument  of 
tyranny.  The  same  feeling  was  displayed  more  than  a  century  after 
Fortescue  in  the  violent  attack  made  by  Parliament  on  Co  well's 
Interpreter,  a  book  which  undertook  to  point  out  the  resemblance 
between  Roman  and  English  law.  Clearly,  therefore,  if  an  English- 
man borrowed  from  the  civil  law,  he  was  not  likely  to  admit  the  debt. 
"For  obvious  reasons,"  as  Mr.  Bryce  has  said,  "the  Chancellors  and 
Masters  of  the  Rolls  did  not  talk  about  Nature,  —  they  referred 
rather  to  the  law  of  God  and  to  Reason.  But  the  ideas  were  Roman, 
drawn  either  from  the  Canon  Law,  or  directly  from  the  Digest  and 
the  Institutes."  *    If  we  wish  an  indirect  proof  of  this  statement  — 

'  Maitland,  Bracton  and  Azo  (Selden  Soc.)  introd. 

^  Pollock,  Nature  of  Jurisprudence,  p.  326.  Maitland,  note  to  Canon  Law  in 
the  Church  of  England. 

3  Sir  W.  Brett  in  Nugent  v.  Smith,  L.  R.  1  C.  P.  D.,  pp.  28-30;  Lord  Cockburn 
in  same  volume,  pp.  428-30;  O.  W.  Holmes,  Jr.,  Common  Law,  p.  181. 

*  Bryce,  Studies  in  History  and  Jurisprudence,  p.  599. 


296  HISTORY  OF   ROMAN   LAW 

for  direct  proof  is  not  yet  forthcoming,  —  we  have  only  to  read  a  few 
pages  of  Story's  Equity  Jurisprudence,  or  of  his  treatises  on  Partner- 
ship or  on  Bailments,  in  all  of  which  he  quotes  from  the  Institutes 
and  Digest,  often  in  the  text,  still  oftener  in  the  notes.  We  can 
scarcely  avoid  the  conviction  that  the  parallels  which  he  constantly 
draws  between  Roman  and  English  rules  are  more  than  accidental. 
This  problem  has  not  yet  been  fully  worked  out,  and  probably 
cannot  be,  till  the  early  records  of  the  English  Ecclesiastical  Courts 
are  published  and  studied.  But  the  results  hitherto  attained  show 
that  the  borrowing  of  Roman  principles  was  carried  out  in  England, 
not  by  wholesale,  but  in  small  and  haphazard  installments.  In  early 
English  law  it  is  admitted  that  possessio  influenced  the  conception 
of  seizin,  and  laesa  maiestas  that  of  treason.^  At  a  later  day  the 
Court  of  Chancery  was  similarly  influenced  in  dealing  with  mortgages 
and  with  uses  and  trusts,  while  in  the  construction  of  documents 
and  wills  it  naturally  followed  the  Ecclesiastical  Courts,  and  borrowed 
its  rules  from  the  fiftieth  book  of  the  Digest.'^  Blackstone  rightly 
ascribed  to  Roman  sources  the  practice  of  hotchpot  and  the  rules 
for  the  distribution  of  personalty. 

It  is  interesting  to  note  how  this  affected  the  great  lawyers  of  the 
seventeenth  century.  Sir  Edward  Coke  was  as  far  as  possible  from 
being  an  enthusiastic  civilian,  yet  even  in  his  work  may  be  found 
traces  of  Roman  influence,  though  possibly  he  was  not  aware  of  it. 
For  instance,  he  gives  the  rule,  "  Nullus  commodum  capere  potest  de 
iniuria  sua  propria,"  which  is  merely  a  slightly  altered  form  of  the 
Digest's  "Nemo  ex  suo  delicto  meliorem  suam  condidonem  facer e 
potest."^  In  another  place  he  quotes  from  Bracton  the  rule  on 
testamentary  ambiguity,  "  Benigne  interpretari  et  secundum  id  quod 
credihile  est  cogitatum."  Here,  though  his  language  is  different,  his 
use  of  Marcellus's  phrase  "benigna  interpretation  seems  to  confirm 
the  Roman  origin  of  the  rule.*  The  same  may  be  said  of  the 
somewhat  longer  statement  given  by  Coke  of  the  rule  "ratihahitio 
mandato  comparatur."^  Turning  to  Coke's  great  adversary,  we 
find  in  his  work  also  distinct  traces  of  the  civil  law,  though  it  has 
been  said  that  Bacon  had  only  a  "bowing  acquaintance"  with  it. 
In  his  lectures  on  uses,  for  instance,  he  draws  a  comparison  between 
the  use  and  the  fidei  commissio,  and  in  his  short  essays  on  legal 
maxims  he  supports  at  least  two  rules  by  citations  from  Roman 
sources.®  To  one  rule  which  he  has  stated  he  adds:  "These  be 
the  very  words  of  the  civil  law."  More  extracts  of  this  same  kind 
could  be  collected  from  other  English  law-writers  of  the  seventeenth 
century;    and  after  making  due  allowance  for  the  hostile  attitude 

'  Pollock  &  Maitland,  History  of  English  Law,  vol.  ii,  pp.  46  and  503. 
*  Scrutton,  Roman  Law  and  the  Law  of  England,  p.  157. 
3  Coke,  Inst.  148b.  *  Coke  Inst.  36a.  Dig.  34,  5,  24. 

»  Coke,  Inst.  207a;  Dig.  46,  3,  12,  4.      «  Bacon,  MaTims,  Reg.  3  and  11. 


ROMAN  LAW  —  HISTORICAL  SCIENCES  297 

of  the  Inns  of  Court,  I  think  such  extracts  are  just  what  we  might 
expect  to  find.  For  there  can  be  Httle  doubt  that  the  classic  sources 
of  Roman  law  were  in  that  century  more  or  less  famihar,  not  only  to 
those  who  had  prepared  for  practice  in  the  Court  of  Arches  and 
Doctors'  Commons,  but  to  all  well-educated  men.  Professor  Maitland 
has  shown  in  his  delightful  Rede  Lecture  that  England  under 
Henrj'-  VIII  was  in  some  danger  of  having  a  "  reception  "  of  her  own ;  ^ 
a  permanent  result  of  which  was  that  at  her  universities,  where 
no  EngHsh  law  was  taught  until  1758  at  Oxford  and  1800  at  Cam- 
bridge, there  have  been  Regius  Professors  of  Civil  Law  since  Henry 
VIII 's  time.  Some  of  them,  Uke  Alberico  Gentile,  Sir  Thomas  Smith, 
and  John  Co  well  of  Interpreter  fame,  were  of  far  more  than  mere 
academic  reputation.  It  must  be  remembered,  too,  that  the  books 
of  Justinian,  though  to  us  they  seem  foreign,  are  in  a  language 
which  to  the  English  of  the  seventeenth  century  was  still  the  literary 
vernacular  of  all  the  learned  professions.  The  Roman  law  had  then 
begun  to  supply  what  Sir  H.  Maine  has  called  the  lingua  franca  of 
universal  jurisprudence.  That  it  should  not  have  had  some  influence 
even  on  English  judges  and  legal  writers  is  almost  inconceivable. 

We  may  here  consider  the  origin  of  that  best  known  modern 
product  of  Roman  law  which  is  usually  associated  with  the  name 
of  Hugo  Grotius.  International  law,  at  least  in  its  classic  Uteraiy 
beginnings,  is  admitted  to  be  of  Roman  mould,  and  a  very  slight 
acquaintance  with  Grotius 's  famous  book  will  suffice  to  convince  any 
one  of  that  fact.  Two  points  are  of  special  interest  in  this  connection; 
first,  that  the  work  of  the  Italian  civilian  Alberico  Gentile,  Regius 
Professor  of  Civil  Law  at  Oxford,  has  lately  been  shown  to  be  the 
model  on  which  Grotius  improved;  ^  and  secondly,  that  the  great 
John  Selden  answered  Grotius 's  earlier  book  Mare  Liherum  in 
learned  reply  which  shows  what  excellent  knowledge  of  Roman  law 
an  English  lawyer  could  possess.  Selden  prided  himself  on  being 
a  common  lawyer,  and  certainly  had  no  mean  grasp  of  the  common 
law  and  its  history,  as  any  one  will  discover  who  looks  at  his  notes 
on  Fortescue  and  his  book  on  Fleta.  Yet  he  answered  Grotius  in 
a  style  on  which  few  civilians  could  have  improved.  His  very  de- 
scription of  his  opponent  as  "  rerum  humanarum  atque  divinarum 
scientissimum "  ^  is  an  echo  of  the  well-known  Roman  definition. 
While  he  cites  Bracton  and  Fleta,  and  resorts  to  English  archaeology 
by  introducing  the  ship  on  the  rose-ruoble  of  Edward  III  as  a  proof  of 
English  supremacy  over  the  sea,  yet  most  of  his  authorities  are  from 
the  Code  and  Digest,  and  his  learning  extends  even  to  the  Theodosian 
Code.   He  speaks  of  princes  becoming  sui  iuris  by  prescription;  and 

*  Maitland,  Canon  Law  in  the  Church  of  England. 
^  Walker,  History  of  International  Law,  p.  335. 
«  Selden,  Mare  Clausum  (1636),  p.  196. 


298  HISTORY  OF  ROMAN  LAW 

in  his  notes  on  Fortescue  he  contrasts  the  "issue"  of  English  with 
the  litis  contestatio  of  Roman  procedure.  Selden's  case  would  alone 
suffice  to  show  that  the  civil  law  was  in  his  time  no  terra  incognita 
to  learned  English  lawyers,  though  it  may  well  be  admitted  that 
few  were  so  learned  as  he. 

Of  early  international  law  as  such  there  is  not  much  to  be  noted 
beyond  the  fact  already  mentioned  that  it  was  founded  and  built  on 
Roman  law.  If,  for  instance,  we  wish  to  know  where  Grotius  got  his 
idea  of  postliminium,  we  turn  to  the  Digest,  and  similarly  with  his 
conception  of  ius  gentium  and  ius  naturae.  Neither  of  these  was  to 
him  an  abstract  system  founded  on  pure  moral  reasoning,  —  witness 
his  inclusion  of  rules  on  lying  and  deceit  among  the  rules  of  the  law 
of  nature,  —  but  he  thought  with  Gains  that  ius  gentium  was  that 
law  "which  is  observed  among  all  mankind  equally  on  principles 
of  natural  reason";  and  he  based  his  law  of  nature  not  on  abstract 
ideas  but  on  the  necessities  of  social  intercourse. 

For  our  present  purpose  the  most  interesting  point  to  notice  in 
the  classical  writings  on  international  law  is  the  way  in  which  the 
texts  of  the  Roman  jurists  are  there  treated  as  repositories  of  ius 
gentium  and  of  ius  naturae.  Roman  law  seems  in  fact  to  have  been 
regarded,  even  by  men  like  Selden,  as  a  sort  of  universal  common 
law,  the  principles  of  which  should  prevail  wherever  they  were  not 
superseded  by  some  local  system.  As  there  is  obviously  no  such  sys- 
tem applicable  to  international  relations,  the  supremacy  of  Roman 
law  in  that  sphere  was  everywhere  admitted.  Such  a  view  had  two 
important  results.  The  connection  of  international  law  with  a  com- 
pact and  well-understood  mass  of  written  law  has  caused  it  to  be 
treated,  except  by  strict  analysts  like  Austin,  as  something  very 
different  from  international  morality.  And  on  the  other  hand  the 
recourse  to  the  Roman  jurists  for  the  settlement  of  international 
questions  still  further  increased  the  tendency  to  regard  Roman  law 
as  embodying  principles  of  universal  validity. 

While  the  classical  jurists  are  even  now  by  no  means  obsolete,  as 
was  shown  in  the  Behring  Sea  arbitration,  yet  most  of  the  unsettled 
questions  of  the  present  day,  such  as  the  definition  of  contraband  or 
the  control  of  wireless  telegraphy,  will  not  be  determined  by  reference 
to  Roman  texts,  but  by  the  common  assent  of  nations.  The  service 
rendered  by  the  Roman  jurists  to  early  international  law  lay  precisely 
in  the  fact  that  they  were  regarded  as  voicing  this  common  assent, 
and  that  their  writings  commanded  obedience,  although  nobody 
perhaps  could  dlearly  have  explained  why. 

We  have  thus  seen  that  while  Roman  law  has  influenced  the  law 
of  England,  and  has  virtually  originated  that  of  Continental  Europe, 
its  chief  triumph  has  been  the  creation  of  a  system  of  world-wide  law, 
such  as  would  have  delighted  the  heart  of  the  philosophic  Ulpian, 


ROMAN  LAW  — HISTORICAL  SCIENCES  299 

As  an  outcome  of  the  successful  career  which  has  been  thus  briefly 
sketched,  Roman  law  became  the  parent,  not  only  of  the  word 
jurisprudence,  but  of  the  science  which  that  word  denotes.  For 
centuries  all  over  Europe  grammar  was  studied,  and  in  England  is 
still  studied,  in  the  concrete  form  of  Latin  grammar.  In  exactly 
the  same  way,  the  science  of  legal  principles  was  studied  through 
'  the  medium  of  Roman  law.  The  legists  and  canonists  of  the  Middle 
Ages  and  the  Renaissance  knew  of  no  other  medium,  and  even  in  the 
English  universities  this  law  was  all-powerful.  When  Austin  founded 
the  raodeni  science  of  jurisprudence  nearly  one  hundred  years  ago, 
although  he  worked  in  a  non-Roman  atmosphere  and  belonged  to 
the  school  of  Bentham  and  James  Mill,  who  respected  the  Digest 
as  little  as  they  did  Blackstone  or  the  French  doctrine  of  natural 
rights,  it  is  interesting  to  note  how  little  he  succeeded  in  escaping 
from  the  clutches  of  the  Roman  law.  Not  only  did  he  use  the 
Corpus  very  largely  as  material  for  his  analytical  dissecting-knife,  but 
when  he  gave  the  results  of  his  analyses,  he  merely  did  on  a  broader 
scale  and  with  greater  elaboration  just  what  a  Roman  jurist  used  to 
do  when  he  constructed  a  definition  of  furtum  or  possessio.  The  study 
of  Roman  law  was  just  then  beginning  to  enjoy  on  the  Continent, 
in  common  with  other  branches  of  historical  science,  the  greatest  of 
all  its  revivals.  In  the  powerful  hands  of  Savigny  and  his  followers, 
its  principles  were  being  dragged  out  from  that  "disorderly  mass" 
which  offended  James  Mill,^  and  were  making  splendid  additions 
to  the  material  of  juristic  science.  Soon  afterwards  the  historical 
movement  started  by  Savigny  was  extended  to  remoter  regions, 
and  helped  to  found  the  modem  study  of  comparative  jurisprudence. 
This  was  signalized  in  a  striking  way  when  in  1831  the  College  de 
France  established  simultaneously  the  chair  of  Archaeology  for 
Champollion  and  that  of  Compared  Legislation  which  was  soon 
filled  by  Laboulaye.  In  England  Sir  Henry  Maine  and  his  school 
did  as  much  for  the  promotion  of  comparative  jurisprudence  as  they 
did  for  the  revival  of  Roman  law.  Since  then  the  comparative 
method  has  developed  the  still  more  modern  science  of  ethnological 
jurisprudence,  which  places  the  customs  of  the  negro,  the  Chinaman, 
and  the  Bushman  on  a  level  with  the  laws  of  the  Roman,  regarding 
them  all,  not  as  coincidences,  but  as  emanations  of  a  common  human 
nature.^  Though  these  newer  and  broader  methods  of  investiga- 
tion might  seem  destined  to  supersede  the  study  of  Roman  law  to 
which  they  owed  their  birth,  such  a  thing  is  never  likely  to  occur, 
simply  because  the  backward  races  present  to  us  only  primitive 
conceptions  in  a  few  subjects  such  as  property,  slavery,  or  marriage, 
whereas  the  Roman  law  was  adapted  to  a  high  and  complex  civiliz- 

*  Mill,  Jurisprudence  (1822),  p.  5. 

'  A.  Post,  Grundriss  der  ethnologischen  Jurisprudem. 


300  HISTORY   OF   ROMAN   LAW 

ation  similar  to  our  own.  It  must  for  many  years,  if  not  always, 
remain  true  that  Jurisprudence  cannot  repudiate  its  relationship  or 
sever  its  filial  connections  with  Roman  Law,  except  at  the  cost  of 
great  injury  to  both. 

II 

The  connection  between  Law  and  Politics  is  so  close  that  some 
writers  like  Montesquieu  and  Bentham  have  been  equally  interested 
in  both  sciences.  Therefore  Roman  law  in  its  influence  on  legal 
development  could  not  fail  to  be  also  a  factor  in  politics,  both  actual 
and  theoretical.  Political  conditions  may  be  said  to  be  a  resultant 
of  social  forces  and  of  abstract  ideals,  acting  and  reacting  upon  one 
another;  and  thus  political  theory  is  always  a  factor  in  actual 
politics.  But  the  actual  and  the  theoretical  should  be  kept  distinct  and 
be  separately  treated.  After  the  downfall  of  the  Western  Empire,  and 
with  it  of  the  rule  of  pure  Roman  law  in  many  parts  of  Europe,  the 
history  of  actual  European  politics  can  only  be  understood  by  study- 
ing various  concurrent  influences,  such  as  Christianity,  Teutonic 
custom,  incipient  feudalism,  etc.  Among  such  ingredients  the  Roman 
law  must  always  be  counted,  but  as  to  how  far  it  may  have  affected 
each  individual  country  no  general  statement  can  be  made. 

In  two  great  constitutions,  however,  those  of  the  Medieval  Empire 
and  of  the  Medieval  Church,  the  legal  example  of  Rome  was  para- 
mount. For  five  hundred  years  she  had  established  both  in  principle 
and  in  practice  that  her  princeps  should  be  the  supreme  potentate 
of  Europe,  so  that  when  Charles  and  Otto  were  crowned  Emperors 
at  Rome  it  was  naturally  held  that  the  principate  was  continued 
in  them.  But  unfortunately  the  successors  of  St.  Peter  also  aspired 
to  fill  that  same  office,  on  the  ground  that  the  supreme  head  of  the 
Church  must  be  the  rightful  occupant  of  the  imperial  throne.  Thus 
Gregory  VII  claimed  the  rights  of  Cfesar  as  well  as  those  of  Pontifex 
Maximus,  and  insisted  that  Henry  IV  was  subject  to  his  jurisdiction. 
Indeed,  the  tremendous  struggle  between  Pope  and  Emperor,  which 
for  centuries  was  the  storm-centre  of  European  politics,  was  simply 
a  long  dispute  as  to  which  of  these  rulers  was  that  mighty  princeps 
described  in  the  Digest,  who  was  legihus  solutus  and  whose  will  had 
the  force  of  law.  The  head  of  the  Church  got  the  better  of  the  con- 
troversy so  far  as  real  power  was  concerned,  for  it  is  well  known 
that  the  imperial  authority,  though  immense  in  theory,  was,  except 
in  a  few  instances,  very  shadowy  in  fact.  Again  in  the  organization 
of  the  Church  Roman  law  had  a  great  effect,  for  —  as  Professor 
Harnack  has  pointed  out  —  we  have  in  the  great  system  which 
centres  at  the  Vatican  a  fair  copy,  surviving  down  to  the  present 
day,  of  the  administrative  organization  of  Constantino  and  Justinian.* 
*  Hamack,  History  of  Dogma  (trans.),  vol.  i,  p.  122. 


ROMAN  LAW  —  HISTORICAL  SCIENCES  301 

Apart  from  its  lessons  to  the  Church  and  Empire,  the  civil  law  sup- 
plied to  the  rest  of  Europe  that  famous  maxim  quod  principi  pla- 
cuit,  etc.,  which  was  so  unpopular  in  England.  This,  in  combination 
with  Church  doctrines,  did  much  to  fortify,  if  not  to  produce,  the 
system  of  absolute  monarchy  which  generally  prevailed  on  the 
Continent  till  the  French  Revolution,  and  which  is  even  now  not 
entirely  dead. 

When  we  come  to  consider  political  theory  as  expressed  in  litera- 
ture prior  to  the  Reformation,  it  is  certain  that  all  writers  on  the 
subject  owed  much  to  Roman  law.  Aristotle,  the  Bible,  the  Fathers, 
and  the  texts  of  Roman  jurists  are  the  armories  from  which  most 
of  their  controversial  weapons  are  drawn.  The  work  done  by  the 
medieval  legists  and  canonists  in  developing  political  theory  has 
not  been  sufficiently  studied.^  But  they  were  still  for  the  most 
part  too  thoroughly  possessed  with  the  idea  of  a  single  world-empire  to 
be  capable  of  speculating  independently  as  to  the  origin  and  nature 
of  sovereignty  or  of  the  state.  The  best  known  political  writings 
of  that  period  were  merely  briefs  for  or  against  the  Pope  or  his  rival. 
Thus  St.  Thomas  Aquinas  argued  that,  since  government  was  devised 
to  promote  the  highest  good  of  man,  and  this  consisted  in  the  fruition 
of  God,  the  head  of  God's  Church  on  earth  should  be  the  supreme 
ruler.  In  his  De  Monorchia  on  the  other  hand,  Dante  maintained  the 
view  that  the  Empire  of  his  day  was  the  legitimate  successor  of  the 
Roman  Empire,  and  attacked  the  Pope's  pretensions  to  supremacy. 
He  made  a  legal  argument  to  show  that  the  alleged  Donation  of 
Constantine,  if  genuine,  was  invalid,  and  that  Leo  could  not  have  had 
the  right  to  bestow  the  imperial  office  on  Charles  the  Great.  Dante 
was  convinced  that  the  world  had  never  been  so  well  governed  as 
when  it  obeyed  a  single  ruler.  ^ 

During  the  Renaissance,  Bodin  and  Machiavelli,  the  founders  of 
the  modern  science  of  politics,  were  able  to  inquire,  with  far  less 
partisan  bias,  into  the  foundations  and  functions  of  the  state.  But 
as  they  worked  in  the  legal  atmosphere  of  the  time,  which  was  one 
of  Roman  law,  they  naturally  arrived  at  theories  of  absolute  mon- 
archy, similar  to  that  which  we  see  depicted  in  the  Corpus  luris, 
though  they  would  both  have  agreed  with  Julianus  that  the  ultimate 
basis  of  law  lies  in  the  popular  will.'  Though  Bodin  insisted  that 
Roman  law  was  dead  and  possessed  no  general  authority,  his  con- 
ception of  the  family  was  purely  Roman,  and  he  was  unable  to 
conceive  of  a  king  as  subject  to  constitutional  control.*  Machiavelli 
was  particularly  enamoured  of  Roman  examples  in  politics.  He 
admired  the  Roman  Republic  far  more  than  the  Empire,  yet  for 

*  Maitland,  Gierke's  Political  Theories,  &c.,  p.  101.         *  Convito,  iv,  5. 
5  Dig.  1,3,  32,  1. 

*  Foumol,  Bodin  precUcesseur  de  Montesquieu,  p.  56. 


302  HISTORY  OF  ROMAN  LAW 

practical  purposes  he  advocated  the  absolute  power  of  a  prince.  His 
works  had  much  influence  on  English  political  writers  in  the  age  of 
Elizabeth  and  strengthened  their  arguments  in  favor  of  absolutism.* 
The  Digest  was  still  recognized  as  a  repository  of  valuable  citations, 
for  John  Knox  made  use  of  it  in  attacking  the  "  regiment  of  women," 
and  the  civilian  Gentile  resorted  to  it  when  writing  in  support  of 
James  I's  royal  prerogative.  But  after  the  early  seventeenth  cen- 
tury its  direct  authority  in  political  discussion  seems  to  have  de- 
clined. 

The  conception  of  natural  law  which  figures  in  the  works  of  political 
theorists  both  before  and  after  the  Renaissance,  can  trace  its  history 
directly  back  to  the  texts  of  Roman  law;  but,  as  Mr.  Bryce  has 
shown  in  one  of  his  Studies,^  the  precise  scope  and  force  of  natural 
law  were  so  differently  viewed  by  different  writers  that  it  would  be 
impossible  here  to  summarize  their  opinions.  It  is  now  well  known 
that  the  theory  of  the  law  of  nature,  borrowed  from  the  Roman 
jurists  by  St.  Isidore  of  Seville,  passed  from  him  into  Gratian's 
Decretum,^  and  that  by  thus  becoming  embodied  in  the  canon  law 
it  was  familiar  to  European  thought  even  before  the  study  of  the 
Roman  texts  was  revived. 

The  most  famous  theory  of  modem  politics,  that  of  the  Original 
or  Social  Compact,  did  not  become  conspicuous  till  the  end  of  the 
sixteenth  century  and  the  beginning  of  the  seventeenth,  although 
in  a  medieval  form  it  had  appeared  as  far  back  as  the  eleventh  cen- 
tury.* Its  introduction  into  modem  thought  is  due  to  the  German 
Johannes  Althusius,  the  Englishman  Richard  Hooker,  and  the 
Dutchman  Hugo  Grotius.  Their  position,  as  stated  by  Hooker  in  the 
Ecclesiastical  Polity,  was  that  there  are  two  foundations  of  public 
societies;  first,  natural  inclination;  secondly,  "the  order  expressly 
or  secretly  agreed  upon  touching  the  manner  of  their  union  in  Uving 
together."  This  view  of  the  origin  of  the  state  was  adopted  in  various 
forms  by  Hobbes,  Locke,  and  Blackstone,  but  its  most  famous  ex- 
ponent is  Rousseau,  who  carried  it  to  extremes  undreamt  of  by  its 
first  authors.  Its  significance  for  our  present  purpose  is  that  it 
clearly  seems  to  have  been  suggested  by  those  passages  from  the 
Roman  jurists  which  declare  law  to  be  communis  rei  publicae  sponsio, 
and  which  describe  custom  having  the  force  of  law  as  ta/dta  civium 
conventio.^  For  if  law  could  be  regarded  as  the  product  of  an  agree- 
ment between  the  citizens  of  a  state,  it  needed  but  a  short  step  to 
find  in  a  similar  agreement  the  origin  of  the  state  itself. 

There  can  thus  be  no  doubt  that,  at  least  down  to  the  period  of  the 

*  Dyer,  Machiavelli  and  the  Modem  State,  pp.  58,  77;  Einstein,  Italian  Re- 
naissance in  England. 

*  Biyce,  Studies,  &c.,  pp.  593,  597. 

'  Ihid.  p.  594.  Carlyle,  History  of  Medieval  Political  Theory,  p.  106. 

*  Carlyle,  op.  cit.  p.  62.  ">  Dig.  1,  3,  1,  and  1,  3,  35. 


ROMAN  LAW  —  HISTORICAL  SCIENCES  303 

French  Revolution,  the  history  of  politics,  whether  in  theory  or  in 
practice,  could  not  possibly  be  understood  without  some  knowledge 
of  the  Roman  law  and  its  efifects. 

m 

That  Economics  are  closely  connected  with  both  Politics  and 
Law  is  strikingly  illustrated  by  the  fact  that  The  Wealth  of  Nations 
was  an  expansion  by  Adam  Smith  of  one  third  of  a  course  of  lectures, 
the  other  two  thirds  of  which  dealt,  first,  with  Public  Jurisprudence, 
and  secondly,  with  Domestic  Law.^  Mr.  Ruskin  has  expounded  the 
Political  Economy  of  Art,  but  the  PoUtical  Economy  of  Law  is  too 
obvious  to  need  pointing  out.  Roman  law  has,  however,  a  special 
value  for  the  student  of  Economic  History,  because  its  records  are 
practically  his  only  source  of  information  for  a  most  important 
period.  Professor  Ramsay  has  explained  the  difficulty  of  investigat- 
ing social  and  economic  facts  under  the  Empire.  "Historians,"  he 
says,  "are  so  occupied  with  the  great  events,  the  satirists  so  busy 
with  the  vices  of  upper-class  society,  the  moralists  with  abstract 
theorizing,  the  poets  with  Greek  mythology,  and  with  the  mainten- 
ance of  their  footing  in  the  atria  of  the  rich  .  .  .  that  they  have 
neither  time  to  write  about  the  aims  of  imperial  policy,  nor  eyes 
to  see  them."  "Here,"  he  adds,  "we  must  trust  to  our  second  class 
of  authorities,  the  inscriptions  and  the  laws."  ^ 

No  reader  of  the  Digest  can  fail  to  have  been  struck  with  its  wonder- 
ful collection  of  little  vignettes  —  one  might  almost  say  snap-shots 
—  illustrating  social  conditions  under  the  Empire.  We  catch  vivid 
glimpses  there  of  capitalists,  tenant-farmers,  artisans,  slaves,  freed- 
men,  and  even  children.  We  see  them  driving  up  the  Clivus  Capitoli- 
nus  or  playing  ball,  as  well  as  buying  or  selhng  or  making  their  wills. 
It  is  a  great  storehouse  of  social  data,  and  we  may  be  thankful 
that  the  tough  casing  of  the  law  has  preserved  them.  Moreover 
we  now  enjoy  the  light  which  of  late  years  has  been  shed  on  them  by 
archaeologists  and  epigraphists.  Facts  as  to  taxation,  administration, 
imperial  and  municipal  finance,  the  conduct  of  shipping  and  other 
industries,  may  all  be  found  in  that  mine  which  Mommsen  and 
Marquardt  have  so  brilliantly  exploited.'  But  the  value  of  the  col- 
lection to  the  economic  historian  may  perhaps  best  be  illustrated  in 
two  instances,  banking  and  the  organization  of  labor. 

The  Digest  is  full  of  information  about  bankers  and  banking.  It 
has  been  pointed  out  that  the  Roman  Empire,  especially  after  the 
time  of  Caracalla,  suffered  from  lack  of  means  for  accumulating 
capital,  owing  to  the  scarcity  of  bullion  and  the  insufficiency  of 

*  Caiman's  edition  of  A.  Smith's  Lectures  on  Justice,  Police,  &c.,  1896. 

*  Ramsay,  The  Church  and  the  Roman  Empire,  p.  184. 

*  See  especially  Marquardt,  Rom.  Staatsverwaltung,  vol.  i,  pp.  165-268. 


304  HISTORY  OF   ROMAN  LAW 

banking  facilities.^  While  these  conditions  doubtless  existed,  and  it  is 
certain  that  the  credit  system  was  crude  and  primitive  compared 
with  that  of  the  present  day,  yet  we  can  see  in  the  Digest  that  the 
functions  of  the  Roman  argentarii  must  have  considerably  relieved 
the  strain  on  the  metallic  currency.  This  was  partly  recognized  at  the 
time,  for  the  banking  business  is  expressly  stated  to  be  of  public 
utility;  and  since  the  recent  excavation  of  the  Basilica  Aemilia  in 
the  Forum,  where  the  principal  banking-offices  were  situated,  and 
the  marble  pavement  of  which  is  still  strewn  with  remains  of  their 
coins,  we  know  that  in  Rome,  at  least,  the  state  provided  well  for 
their  comfort.  It  is  safe  to  infer,  from  the  silence  of  the  Digest, 
that  even  its  compilers  in  the  sixth  century  had  never  heard  of 
negotiable  instruments  or  of  bills  payable  to  bearer;  yet  the  bankers 
of  the  Empire  did  many  things  to  facilitate  commercial  transactions. 
They  received  money  on  deposit  in  the  modern  way,  the  sum  de- 
posited becoming  a  debt  due  to  the  depositor,  and  they  made  pay- 
ments for  his  account  on  his  written  order.  They  could  transact 
for  a  client  all  sorts  of  sales,  collections,  investments,  and  other  busi- 
ness, make  loans  on  his  behalf,  and  issue  drafts  on  correspondents 
in  other  cities.  When  Cicero  sent  his  son  to  Athens,  he  provided 
him  with  means  of  drawing  money  when  he  got  there,  though  we 
cannot  suppose  that  he  gave  him  a  bill  of  exchange.  He  probably 
got  from  his  banker  an  order  on  some  Athenian  bank,  or  else  bought 
a  debt  payable  in  Athens.  Branch  banks  could  be  managed  by  agents 
or  by  slaves,  and  we  know  that  the  banker  might  have  his  head 
office  in  one  province  and  carry  on  business  in  another.^  The  best 
evidence,  perhaps,  of  the  importance  and  variety  of  the  banker's 
functions  appears  in  the  elaborate  legal  rules  dealing  with  the  produc- 
tion of  his  books  and  the  statement  of  his  accounts,  and  filling  many 
paragraphs  in  the  Digest  and  Code.^ 

It  is  from  these  same  sources,  as  well  as  from  the  Theodosian  Code 
and  from  a  great  array  of  inscriptions,  that  we  derive  our  knowledge 
of  the  Roman  workingman's  clubs  and  trade-unions.  The  inscriptions 
have  not  only  supplied  many  details  not  found  in  the  books,  but  they 
show  to  what  an  extent  free  labor  flourished  all  over  the  Empire, 
even  in  competition  with  slavery.  Under  the  Republic  trade  asso- 
ciations grew  strong  and  had  much  influence  in  politics,  for  Cicero 
constantly  mentions  them,  and  was  advised  by  his  friends  to  bid 
for  their  vote.  Indeed,  their  power  became  so  great,  during  the 
anarchical  times  of  the  later  Republic,  that  they  were  twice  sup- 
pressed by  the  Senate  and  again  by  Julius  Csesar  and  Augustus. 
These  last  prohibitions  did  not,  however,  apply  to  associations  that 

*  Cxmningham,  Essay  on  Western  Civilizaiion,  p.  183. 

^  Dig.  2, 13, 4,  5.  See Guillard,  Les  Banquiers  a  Rome;  Deloume,  Les  Manieurs 
d'argent  a  Rome. 

»  Dig.  2,  13;  Cod.  2,  1. 


ROMAN   LAW  —  HISTORICAL   SCIENCES  305 

were  old  established  or  legally  authorized.  While  we  have  not  full 
particulars  as  to  the  senatorial  and  imperial  legislation,  it  seems 
clear  that  besides  Religious  Clubs,  Burial  Societies,  and  Poor  Men's 
Benefit  Clubs,  the  law  recognized,  or  at  least  tolerated,  a  great  many 
workingmen's  societies  closely  corresponding  to  the  trade-unions  of 
the  present  day.^  Each  trade  seems  to  have  had  its  own  associa- 
tion. There  were  separate  unions  of  carpenters,  masons  and  stone- 
cutters, of  fishermen,  sailors,  boatmen  and  mule-drivers,  of  carriage- 
builders,  carpet-weavers  and  cutlers,  of  butchers,  poultry-dealers, 
cooks,  laundrymen  and  tailors;  in  short,  we  find  no  less  than  one 
hundred  different  trades  in  which  associations  appear  to  have 
existed.^  There  is  no  evidence  of  federation  having  been  attempted 
among  similar  unions  in  different  cities,  but  the  large  unions  had 
local  subdivisions.  Thus  the  building  carpenters  of  Rome  had  about 
twelve  hundred  members  divided  into  sixty  decuriae.  The  unions 
Were  organized  on  the  principle  of  industrial  democracy,  and  could 
enact  any  by-laws  not  conflicting  with  the  general  law.  Their  reven- 
ues were  considerable,  as  evidenced  by  the  way  in  which  they  spent 
them  and  by  the  fact  that  their  meeting-halls  (scholae)  were  substan- 
tial, even  sumptuous,  buildings.  We  cannot  tell  whether  they  ever 
aimed  at  limitation  of  apprentices,  trade  monopoly,  or  the  enforce- 
ment of  a  minimum  wage  or  of  the  "union  shop,"  but  there  can  be 
no  doubt  that  their  object  was  then,  as  it  is  now,  to  strengthen  the 
position  of  the  workingman  and  to  enable  him  in  various  ways  to 
improve  his  condition.  Thus  a  lawsuit  was  carried  on  by  the  Roman 
laundrymen  against  the  imperial  fisc  for  the  possession  of  a  valuable 
plot  of  land,  and  the  laundrymen  were  victorious  after  eighteen 
years  of  litigation.^  As  to  strikes  we  have  few  particulars,  and 
though  we  know  they  occurred,  we  cannot  tell  what  were  their 
effects.  If  they  tended  to  disturb  the  peace,  they  were  no  doubt 
sternly  suppressed  by  the  Roman  magistrates,  as  happened  in  one 
strike  of  which  an  account  has  been  preserved.*  But  of  all  the 
vicissitudes  of  the  Roman  unions  the  most  fully  described  and  the 
most  interesting  is  that  socialistic  system  of  state  control  depicted 
in  the  Theodosian  Code,  under  which  they  passed  in  the  fourth 
century.  Under  this  system  every  artisan  was  compelled  to  enlist 
in  the  union  of  his  trade,  and  each  union  became  virtually  a  branch 
of  the  state's  administrative  machinery.  For  facts  such  as  these  the 
economic  historian  is  indebted  partly  to  the  archaeologist,  but  chiefly 
to  the  civil  lawyer. 

^  The  most  complete  discussion  of  this  subject  is  that  of  Waltzing,  EttuJe  hist, 
sur  les  Corporations  Professionnelles,  Brussels,  1895. 
'  See  list  in  Waltzing,  vol.  ii,  p.  148. 
«  Ibid.  vol.  I,  p.  188. 
*  Ibid.  vol.  I,  p.  192. 


306  HISTORY   OF   ROMAN   LAW 

IV 

To  any  student  of  the  early  history  of  Roman  law,  its  connection 
with  the  history  of  Religion  must  be  evident.  We  cannot  tell  exactly 
what  form  of  punishment  is  referred  to  in  the  words  sacer  esto  of  the 
laws  of  the  Kings  and  the  Twelve  Tables,  but  it  must  have  been  of 
a  religious  character,  and  there  can  be  little  doubt  that  the  earliest 
sanction  of  contract  was  the  displeasure  of  the  gods.  Sponsio,  sacra- 
mentum,  iusiurandum  all  had  a  religious  origin,  and  the  last  of  these 
remained  to  the  very  end  religious  in  form.  Even  as  late  as  the  time 
of  Justinian,  when  there  were  so  many  different  ways  in  which  con- 
tracts could  be  made,  it  is  astonishing  to  see  how  much  the  oath 
was  still  resorted  to  as  a  mode  of  making  a  binding  promise.  Its 
original  sanction  doubtless  was  that  the  perjurer  became  exsecratus, 
cut  off  from  the  sacred  rites  of  his  family,  but  by  Justinian's  time 
the  breach  of  an  oath  gave  to  the  promisee  an  ordinary  civil  right  of 
action.^ 

Again  it  is  well  known  that,  just  as  the  ethical  ideals  of  the  Stoic 
philosophy  affected  the  development  of  Roman  law  in  the  first,  second 
and  third  centuries,  so  the  religious  ideals  of  Christianity  exerted 
an  even  greater  influence  upon  it  from  the  fourth  century  to  the 
sixth.  This  meant  on  the  whole  an  improvement  of  the  law  in  the 
direction  of  increased  humanity  and  equality,  except  in  the  law  of 
persons.  There  we  find,  in  the  disabilities  attached  to  Jews,  pagans, 
and  heretics,  differences  based  on  religion  making  their  appearance 
for  the  first  time  in  Roman  law.  On  the  other  hand,  by  bettering  the 
condition  of  slaves  and  of  women,  by  mitigating  the  patria  potestas, 
and  by  the  gradual  abolition  of  the  rights  of  agnates  which  cul- 
minated in  the  famous  one  hundred  and  eighteenth  Novel  of  Jus- 
tinian, the  Christian  leaven  worked  with  salutary  effect.^ 

Still  more  interesting,  however,  and  more  far-reaching  was  the 
converse  process,  the  modification  wrought  by  the  legal  atmosphere 
of  Rome  in  the  religious  rites  and  doctrines  of  Christianity.  So  far 
as  I  know,  this  subject  has  never  yet  received  adequate  treatment, 
which  is  the  more  strange  because  Sir  H.  Maine  long  ago  drew  attention 
to  it  in  a  famous  passage.^  But  the  field  is  an  immense  one,  and  a  few 
points  only  can  here  be  mentioned.  As  to  ritual,  it  is  scarcely  neces- 
sary to  recall  the  fact  that  the  solemn  questions  put  to  the  man  and 
woman  in  the  marriage  service  and  to  the  sponsors  in  the  baptismal 
service,  which  still  survive  in  the  English  Book  of  Common  Prayer, 
were  framed  in  the  contractual  form  peculiar  to  Roman  law.  Richard 
Hooker,  to  whom  the  use  for  such  a  purpose  of  this  Roman  form 
seemed  quite  natural  and  proper,  explains  to  the  English  reader  how 

'  Dig.  13,  5,  25,  1. 

'  Troplong,  Influence  du  Christianisme  sur  le  Droit  Civil.     Lea,  Studies  in 
Church  History.     Osborn,  Classical  Heritage  of  the  Middle  Ages. 
^  Ancient  Law  (11th  ed.),  p.  357. 


ROMAN   LAW  —  HISTORICAL   SCIENCES  307 

the  Roman  verbal  contract  was  made,  and  quaintly  adds:  "Is  it 
toyish  that  the  Church  exacteth  an  irrevocable  promise  of  obedience 
by  way  of  a  solemn  stipulation?"^ 

In  the  development  of  Christian  doctrine  there  appears  a  tendency 
similar  to  that  which  Matthew  Arnold  described  in  Literature  and 
Dogma.  Legal  phrases  and  conceptions  derived  from  Roman  law. 
which  were  at  first  used  metaphorically  or  by  way  of  illustration, 
came  by  degrees  to  be  used  literally  as  dogmatic  definitions.  Thus 
the  relation  of  God  to  man,  from  being  viewed  as  a  moral  one  based 
upon  love  and  duty,  came  to  be  regarded  in  a  strictly  legal  light. 

It  has  often  been  pointed  out  that  St.  Paul,  as  befitted  a  Roman 
citizen,  was  fond  of  using  metaphors  drawn  from  the  law  of  the 
Empire.  As  has  been  well  said  by  a  distinguished  clergyman,  "he 
construed  Christ  in  mixed  terms  of  Hebrew  sacrifice  and  Roman 
law. "2  St.  Paul  uses  the  ceremony  of  adoption,  the  Roman  concep- 
tion of  heirship,  the  Roman  form  of  guardianship,  the  sealing  of  the 
praetorian  will,  in  order  to  illustrate  various  aspects  of  God's  dealings 
with  man.^  But  he  uses  them  as  illustrations,  not  as  clear-cut 
definitions.  So  also,  when  he  speaks  of  the  death  of  Christ  as  a  ran- 
soming or  redemption  of  man  from  sin,  he  does  so  by  way  of  showing 
in  an  eloquent  figure  of  speech  how  man  has  been  affected  by  Christ's 
influence  and  example,  rather  than  as  defining  a  legal  function 
performed  by  Christ. 

When  we  pass  to  the  works  of  Augustine,  Ambrose,  Origen,  Atha- 
nasius,  and  other  Fathers  of  the  Church,  we  find  the  idea  of  Christ's 
work  for  man  beginning  to  harden  into  that  of  the  performance  by 
Him  of  a  legal  service.*  This  was  regarded  as  one  of  two  legal  trans- 
actions; either  (1)  as  satisfactio,  paying  off  the  debt  which  man,  an 
insolvent  debtor,  was  himself  unable  to  pay,  and  canceling  the 
chirograph  made  by  man;  or  (2)  as  redemptio,  buying  man  back  from 
the  slavery  in  which  Satan  held  him.  But  for  theological  purposes 
these  two  different  aspects  of  the  Atonement  were  treated  as  one  and 
the  same. 

Pelagius  and  St.  Augustine  in  the  fifth  century  had  a  famous 
controversy  over  the  effects  of  Christ's  sacrifice,  and  so  had  Abelard 
and  St.  Bernard  seven  centuries  later.  In  both  cases  the  orthodox 
doctrine  prevailed,  that  men  could  not  become  partakers  of  the 
Kingdom  of  Heaven  unless  their  debts  were  wiped  out  through  the 
satisfaction  offered  by  Christ.^ 

St.  Anselm  of  Canterbury,  who  had  studied  the  civil  law,  and 

*  Ecclesiastical  Polity,  5th  book,  sect.  64. 

*  McConnell,  Christ,  p.  54. 

'  Ball,  St.  Paul  and  the  Roman  Law. 

*  See  extracts  from  the  Fathers  in  Bibliotheca  Sacra,  vol.  36,  p.  441. 

'  Voss,  Hist.  Pelagian,  lib.  7,  1,  thesis  3,  and  his  Responsio  ad  Judicium  Ra- 
venspergii,  cap.  3. 


308  HISTORY  OF  ROMAN  LAW 

who  lived  just  at  the  time  of  the  great  legal  revival,  seems  to  have 
been  the  first  great  Christian  writer  who  elaborated  the  dogma  that, 
as  part  of  a  scheme  ordained  from  all  eternity  whereby  God's  justice 
should  be  satisfied  and  man's  sin  pardoned,  God  had  become  man 
in  order  to  satisfy  by  His  death  a  debt  which  the  human  race  had 
heaped  up,  but  could  not  pay.  This  strictly  legal  view  was  elaborated 
by  the  Thomists  and  Scotists  in  their  disputes  over  satisfactio  super- 
abundans  and  satisfactio  gratuita,  and  at  the  Reformation  it  was 
appropriated  by  the  Reformers,  who  quite  logically  insisted  upon 
it  as  a  strong  argument  against  the  Papal  system  of  penance  and 
indulgences.  Luther  said  that  "by  none  other  sacrifice  or  offering 
could  God's  fierce  anger  be  appeased  but  by  the  precious  blood  of 
the  Son  of  God  ";  and  the  poet  of  Puritanism  has  stated  its  doctrine 
in  the  gloomy  lines: 

"  Die  he  or  justice  must;  unless  for  him 
Some  other  able,  and  as  willing,  pay 
The  rigid  satisfaction;  death  for  death." 

To  what  legal  extremes  this  theory  of  atonement  was  carried  at  the 
Reformation  is  nowhere  better  shown  than  in  the  Defence  of  the 
Catholic  Faith  which  Grotius  wrote  against  Socinus.^  Socinus  had 
argued  that  where  there  was  satisfaction  of  a  debt  there  could  be  no 
need  for  any  remission  of  that  debt  by  God.  Grotius  answered  him 
with  citations  from  the  Digest.  He  admitted  that  Socinus 's  contention 
would  have  been  true  if  the  legal  service  performed  by  Christ  had 
been  acceptilatio,  novatio,  or  delegatio.  But  inasmuch  as  that  service 
was  in  law  quite  a  different  transaction,  and  since  the  obligation 
incurred  by  man  had  not  been  canceled  by  Christ,  but  merely  sus- 
pended through  the  working  of  satisfactio,  Grotius  argued  that  there 
was  still  room  for  the  exercise  of  God's  mercy  in  completely  doing 
away  with  man's  liability.^ 

It  would  be  interesting  to  trace  the  whole  history  of  this  famous 
dogma,  perhaps  the  strongest  though  by  no  means  the  only  instance 
of  legal  influence  on  Christian  religious  thought;  but  in  so  short 
a  sketch  details  must  needs  be  omitted.  The  doctrine  figured  con- 
spicuously in  the  teaching  of  Wesley,  whose  constant  cry  was: 
"  Plead  thou  singly  the  blood  of  the  Covenant,  the  ransom  paid  for 
thy  proud  stubborn  soul,"  and  through  him  it  has  played  a  great 
part  in  modern  Protestantism.  While  it  may  be  true,  in  the  recent 
words  of  an  English  clergyman,  that  "  theories  of  atonement  are  now 
either  rejected  or  in  process  of  being  rejected," '  St.  Anselm's  legal 
doctrine  still  numbers  many  adherents. 

^  Socinus,  De  Chris'o  Servatore,  pars  3,  cap.  1-6. 

'  Grotius,  Def.  Fidei  Cath.  cap.  6. 

*  Canon  Henson,  Valiie  of  the  Bible,  p.  279. 


ROMAN  LAW  —  HISTORICAL  SCIENCES  309 

V 

The  history  of  Roman  law  is  clearly  connected  with  that  of  Lit- 
erature, yet  it  can  scarcely  be  shown  that  either  has  had  much  share 
in  actually  moulding  the  other.  It  can  of  course  be  maintained  that 
the  high  development  of  Roman  law  and  the  fascination  which  it 
exercised  on  the  best  Roman  intellect  during  the  zenith  of  the 
Empire  are  mainly  accountable  for  the  differences  between  Greek 
and  Roman  literature,  particularly  for  the  poverty  of  the  latter  in 
philosophical  writings.  But  except  for  that  general  effect  the  relation 
between  law  and  literature  at  Rome  is  on  the  whole  one  of  inter- 
penetration,  rather  than  of  direct  action  and  reaction.  We  can 
interpret  each  by  the  help  of  the  other,  but  we  cannot,  at  least  in 
secular  literature,  establish  any  filiation  between  them.  The  tech- 
nical phrases  used  by  Horace  or  Juvenal  bring  out  the  legal  element 
in  literature,  just  as  the  polished  style  of  Labeo  or  Gains  illustrates 
the  literary  element  in  law.  But  Horace  cannot  be  connected  with 
the  controversies  of  the  Sabinian  and  Proculian  Schools,  nor  can  we 
trace  Juvenal's  remark.  Res  flsci  est,  uhicunque  natat,^  to  the  inspir- 
ation of  any  particular  jurist.  No  literature  can  be  fundamentally 
understood  without  understanding  the  laws  of  the  country  that 
produced  it,  and  this  is  particularly  true  of  Rome,  because  law  was 
her  chief  intellectual  pursuit.  On  the  other  hand,  the  writings  of 
the  Roman  jurisconsults,  being  couched  in  a  style  of  extraordinary 
elegance  and  precision,  are  not  only  entitled  to  claim  that  Uterary 
taste  is  requisite  for  their  appreciation;  they  represent  in  them- 
selves a  distinct  branch  of  literature,  a  branch  in  which  they  have 
probably  never  been  excelled. 

The  fact  that  law  and  literature  can  be  interwoven  is  proved  in 
Aristophanes  and  the  Attic  orators,  as  well  as  in  many  more  modem 
instances,  but  no  better  examples  can  be  found  than  in  Latin  literature. 
Several  of  Cicero's  orations  would  be  hopelessly  puzzling  if  it  were 
not  for  our  knowledge  of  Roman  law,  just  as  the  Fasti  of  Ovid 
would  be  full  of  difficulty  unless  we  knew  something  about  Roman 
religion.  The  same  may  be  said  of  many  passages  in  the  plays  of 
Terence  and  particularly  of  Plautus.  Volumes  have  been  written, 
especially  in  recent  years,  to  explain  how  the  law  serves  to  elucidate 
those  passages,  and  how  they  serve  even  to  better  purpose  in  elucidat- 
ing the  law.  For  just  as  the  Fasti  throw  more  light  on  Roman  religion 
and  topography  than  we  receive  from  the  historians  of  Ovid's  age, 
so  it  is  certain  that  we  derive  more  knowledge  of  the  early  history 
of  Roman  law  from  information  incidentally  conveyed  by  literary 
men  like  Livy,  Cicero,  and  Plautus  than  we  do  from  facts  intentionally 
imparted  by  scholars  like  Varro.  For  any  acquaintance  with  early 
law  Latin  literature  is  indeed  indispensable.    And  in  later  times,  as 

»  Sat.  4,  55. 


310  HISTORY   OF   ROMAN   LAW 

we  noted  above,  Roman  law  becomes  in  turn  absolutely  essential 
for  the  proper  understanding  of  religious  literature. 

VI 

The  intimate  connection  between  the  history  of  Roman  law  and 
that  of  Language  seems  scarcely  to  need  pointing  out,  when  our 
every-day  speech  is  constantly  and  openly  confessing  its  many 
obligations  to  that  law.  This  very  word  obligation,  borrowed  from 
a  "vocable  of  art "  devised  by  the  Roman  jurists,  is  a  word  the  his- 
tory of  which  is  impossible  to  trace  till  we  go  back  and  discover 
how  they  formed  it  and  in  what  sense  they  used  it.  The  same  is  true 
of  nouns  such  as  person,  privilege,  prejudice,  occupation,  exception, 
sequestration,  confusion;  of  adjectives  such  as  peremptory,  manda- 
tory, specific;  and  of  verbs  such  as  adopt,  redeem,  emancipate.  All 
these  are  derived  from  technical  terms  familiar  to  the  Roman  jurists, 
yet  their  meaning  has  undergone  such  change  in  the  course  of  ages 
that  their  legal  origin  is  quite  forgotten.  A  long  list  of  similar  words 
in  our  modern  vocabularies  could  be  made  by  simply  working 
through  an  English,  French,  or  even  German  dictionary.  Some  terms, 
again,  such  as  usufruct,  plebiscite,  manumission,  servitude,  have 
passed  from  Roman  into  modern  terminology  without  material 
change  in  their  original  sense;  while  other  nouns,  such  as  solidarity, 
have  been  taken,  not  from  legal  nouns,  but  from  technical  adjectives. 

Not  only  must  we  seek  in  Roman  law  the  parents  of  many  of  our 
words;  there  are  some  also  of  which  the  genealogy  tran  be  traced 
through  many  gradations  of  meaning  even  in  the  hands  of  Roman 
lawyers.  For  instance,  their  word  humanitas  signifies  in  different 
passages;  (1)  human  nature,  (2)  sensibility,  (3)  kindness,  (4)  com- 
passion; while  pietas  denotes  in  different  legal  texts:  (1)  sense  of  duty 
based  on  family  ties,  (2)  conscientiousness  shown  by  an  employee, 
(3)  the  feeling  expected  from  a  Christian  toward  his  church  and  its 
members.  Nor  does  this  enumeration  by  any  means  exhaust  all  the 
shades  of  meaning  given  by  Roman  lawyers  to  those  two  words.  ^ 

It  should  also  be  remembered  that  among  the  most  important 
contributions  to  the  history  of  Roman  law  are  the  curious  details 
and  the  citations  from  ancient  texts  which  have  been  preserved  by 
Roman  students  of  the  science  of  language,  such  as  Varro  and  Festus. 
They  alone  have  saved  from  oblivion,  as  one  may  see  fully  set  forth 
in  the  pages  of  Bruns,  much  antiquarian  lore  invaluable  to  the  legal 
historian.  Even  the  best  Roman  lawyers  were  also  dabblers  in  philo- 
logy, as  we  can  see  from  the  derivations  of  legal  terms  which  Gaius 
and  others  have  handed  down  to  us.  Though  their  efforts  in  this 
line  savor  of  the  famous  derivation  of  Erie  Canal  from  Eridanus, 
they  are  valuable  as  showing  their  authors'  point  of  view.  Nor  does 
»  Kruger,  Z.  der  Sav.  Stift.  fur  RG,  vol.  19,  1888,  p.  6. 


ROMAN   LAW  —  HISTORICAL  SCIENCES  311 

this  comprehend  all  the  services  of  the  philologist  to  legal  history. 
For  in  comparative  jurisprudence  it  has  been  shown,  as  for  instance 
by  the  present  Regius  Professor  of  Civil  Law  in  the  University  of 
Cambridge,  that  by  tracing  the  etymology  and  analyzing  the  use 
of  words  hke  fas,  ius,  lex,  and  their  Greek  and  Teutonic  equivalents, 
much  historic  light  can  be  thrown  on  the  earliest  conceptions  of  law 
as  unconsciously  defined  in  language.^ 

Thus  by  investigating  etymologies,  by  tracing  obsolete  or  obscure 
shades  of  meaning,  and  by  the  preservation  of  rare  antiquities, 
linguistic  scholars  both  ancient  and  modern  have  greatly  helped 
the  legal  historian.  The  civil  lawyer  has  on  his  part  supplied  to 
the  student  of  language  an  immense  mass  of  material  of  well- 
authenticated  date  and  authorship,  filled  with  terms  from  which 
have  directly  descended  many  of  the  words  now  used  not  only  by  the 
Latin  but  also  by  the  Teutonic  race. 

VII 

There  are  two  main  facts  connecting  the  history  of  Law  and  that 
of  Art  in  any  given  place.  The  first  is  that  times  of  great  legal 
activity  or  legal  reform  almost  always  coincide  with  periods  of 
flourishing  art.  This  may  doubtless  be  accounted  for  by  the  fact  that 
law  and  art  are  expressions  of  the  same  human  intellect,  and  when 
that  intellect  is  roused  to  energetic  action  in  one  form,  it  usually  is 
so  in  others  also.  The  second  point  is  that  architecture,  sculpture, 
and  painting  must  inevitably  treat  in  some  measure  of  subjects 
connected  with  the  law  of  their  country.  Any  one  of  those  arts 
may  convey  legal  allusions,  just  as  it  may  suggest  religious  or  political 
ideas,  and  in  order  to  understand  those  allusions  we  have  to  know 
something  about  law,  politics,  or  religion,  as  the  case  may  be.  Both 
points  can  be  well  illustrated  from  the  history  of  Roman  law. 

In  the  first  place,  there  can  be  no  doubt  that  the  most  glorious 
epoch  in  that  history,  beginning  with  the  jurists  of  the  Augustan 
age  and  ending  with  those  under  the  Antonines,  Septimius  Severus, 
and  Caracalla,  was  also  the  golden  age  of  Roman  architecture  and 
sculpture.  For  the  art  of  the  Augustan  period  it  is  enough  to  cite 
that  wonderful  Ara  Pads,  whose  fragments  are  scattered  among 
several  European  museums,  and  the  remains  of  which  are  now  being 
unearthed  under  a  Roman  palace.  And  the  second  of  those  two  great 
centuries  was,  so  far  as  we  are  able  to  judge,  the  period  of  culminating 
splendor  both  in  law  and  in  art.  Trajan  and  Hadrian,  so  great  as 
legislators,  have  each  left  us  one  of  the  magnificent  monuments  of 
antiquity,  a  sculptured  column  in  the  one  case,  and  a  colossal  tomb 
in  the  other.  The  memory  of  Marcus  Aurelius,  in  whose  day  Roman 
society  was  so  intensely  civilized  and  modem,  has  been  preserved 
'  Clark,  Practical  Jurisprudence,  part  i,  chaps.  1-6. 


312  HISTORY   OF   ROMAN   LAW 

for  us  not  only  by  the  Code  and  Digest,  but  by  famous  Roman 
works  of  art  both  in  bronze  and  in  marble.  To  Septimius  Severus  we 
owe  a  splendid  arch,  to  Caracalla  the  remains  of  still  more  splendid 
public  baths;  and  it  should  be  remembered  that  Juha  Domna,  the 
wife  of  the  former  and  the  mother  of  the  latter  emperor,  brought 
together  in  her  brilliant  salon,  not  only  the  best  philosophers,  orators, 
scholars,  poets,  and  artists  that  the  world  could  then  produce,  but 
also  the  greatest  of  Roman  jurists,  Paulus,  Ulpian,  and  Papinian.' 
By  the  time  of  Constantine  we  note  a  decline  in  artistic  no  less  than 
in  legal  achievement.  Again,  when  legal  activity  revives  under 
Justinian  the  codifier  and  reformer,  we  have  his  superb  and  well- 
preserved  architecture  at  Ravenna  and  Constantinople  to  set  beside 
his  even  more  enduring  legal  monuments.  After  him  both  art  and 
law  fall  into  a  kind  of  lethargy,  until  again,  and  surely  not  by  accident, 
the  legal  revival  during  the  twelfth,  thirteenth,  and  fourteenth 
centuries  takes  place  in  the  same  wonderful  period  which  produced 
the  early  Italian  artists.  And  once  again  a  second  renewal  of  interest 
in  the  study  of  Roman  law,  with  which  the  great  Cujas  is  identified, 
coincides  with  the  revival  of  classic  art  in  the  Renaissance.  There 
seems,  in  short,  to  have  been  a  sort  of  tidal  movement  in  the  European 
mind,  by  which  the  ^history  of  art  and  that  of  law  have  equally  been 
affected. 

When  we  come  to  consider  the  legal  allusions  in  art,  for  the  under- 
standing of  which  a  knowledge  of  legal  history  is  requisite,  we  stand 
on  ground  less  easy  to  surv'ey.  For  here  we  find  nothing  but  isolated 
details,  each  of  which  has  to  be  separately  examined.  A  knowledge 
of  legal  history  is  sometimes  useful  in  clearing  up  a  question  of 
ancient  architecture.  Thus  the  basilica  found  in  Domitian's  palace 
on  the  Palatine  could  not  be  appreciated  unless  we  knew  the  Em- 
peror's legal  position  as  final  court  of  appeal.  Similarlj%  the  churches 
built  in  the  catacombs  could  not  be  understood  unless  we  knew  that 
the  law  forbade  burial  inside  Rome,  while  it  also  protected  all  resting- 
places  of  the  dead,  and  that  it  thus  quite  unintentionally  pointed  out 
the  catacombs  as  excellent  sanctuaries  for  a  persecuted  sect.  Some- 
times the  history  of  Roman  law  may  help  us  to  understand  sculpture. 
In  Bologna,  Padua,  and  even  Siena  we  find  wonderful  semi-regal 
tombs  erected  to  the  memory  of  thirteenth  or  fourteenth  century 
jurists.  They  stand  in  a  public  place  covered  with  splendid  canopies 
of  stone,  or  they  rest  against  the  wall  of  a  church,  each  decorated 
with  a  marble  bas-rehef  which  represents  the  great  scholar  sitting. 
book  in  hand,  giving  a  lecture  to  his  class  of  pupils.  These  beautiful 
monuments  would  mean  but  little  to  us,  unless  we  knew  from  legal 
history  how  great  was  the  fame  in  his  own  day  of  an  Aecursius  or 
a  Bartolommeo  di  Saliceto,  and  how  the  revival  of  civil  law  in  Italy 
*  R^ville,  La  Religion  h  Rome  sous  les  Severes,  p.  201. 


ROMAN   LAW  —  HISTORICAL  SCIENCES  313 

produced  a  long  succession  of  such  teachers,  whose  labors  brought 
not  only  renown  but  wealth  to  the  cities  where  they  taught. 

For  understanding  the  work  of  painters  some  knowledge  of  this 
sort  is  even  more  needful.  In  the  great  Florentine  chapter-house  of 
Santa  Maria  Novella,  which  Ruskin  has  so  elaborately  described, 
there  is  a  fresco  depicting  the  seven  divine  sciences  personified  by 
as  many  female  figures.  Beneath  the  figure  which  represents  the 
science  of  Civil  Law  sits  the  Emperor  Justinian.  She  carries  a  sword 
and  a  globe,  while  he  holds  in  his  hands  the  Institutes.  No  one  could 
appreciate  the  point  of  this  personification  unless  he  knew  the 
position  of  Roman  law  in  medieval  Italy  and  the  reverence  with 
which  Justinian  was  regarded,  a  reverence  to  which  Dante  in  his 
Paradiso  has  borne  witness.  Again  in  the  Sala  della  Segnatura  in  the 
Vatican,  we  find,  among  frescoes  representing  religious  scenes,  such 
as  that  of  Moses  giving  the  Tables  of  the  Law,  a  great  fresco  by 
Pierino  del  Vaga  which  sets  forth  the  delivery  of  the  Code  by  Jus- 
tinian to  Tribonian.  This  is  matched  by  another  fresco  which  depicts 
Pope  Gregory  handing  down  the  Decretals.  To  understand  these 
subjects  we  must  know  something  of  the  causes  which  led  men  to 
regard  the  civil  and  canon  laws  as  the  very  foundation-stones  of 
justice. 

In  other  cases  we  find  inscriptions  to  interpret.  For  instance,  in  the 
Sala  della  Segnatura  Raphael  has  written  Rerum  divinarum  notitia 
over  the  head  of  his  Theology,  and  lus  suum  unicuique  tribuens  over 
the  head  of  his  Justice,  thus  quoting  directly  from  Ulpian  and  the 
Institutes.  Similarly  Ambrogio  Lorenzetti,  in  his  great  fresco  of  the 
Sienese  Council  Chamber,  places  two  angels  labeled  Distributiva 
and  Commutativa  above  his  female  figure  personifying  Justice,  and 
thus  refers  to  St.  Thomas  Aquinas  and  Aristotle.  Here  we  need 
Roman  Law  to  explain  the  one  inscription  and  Philosophy  to  ex- 
plain the  other,  just  as  for  the  great  mosaic  of  the  Lateran  Triclinium 
the  history  of  Politics  can  alone  furnish  an  adequate  commentary.* 

After  this  brief  and  most  imperfect  survey  of  the  relations  existing 
between  Roman  law  and  other  sciences  we  may  perhaps  ask  our- 
selves why  it  is  that  we  find  its  remains  and  trace  its  influence  in  so 
many  different  quarters.  To  this  question  a  reply  is  furnished  by 
two  historical  facts. 

First,  the  vitality  of  the  Roman  Empire  was  such  that  it  lasted 
actually  for  a  thousand  years  in  the  East,  and  theoretically  much 
longer  still  in  the  West  of  Europe.  Secondly,  the  law  created  by  it, 
being  a  purely  intellectual  product,  was  even  more  lasting  than  the 
Empire  itself;  so  that  the  barbarians,  who  destroyed  the  outward 
and  visible  signs  of  the  Roman  power,  were  themselves  subjugated 
'  Bryce,  Holy  Roman  Empire  (8th  ed.)  p.  117. 


314  HISTORY  OF   ROMAN   LAW 

by  its  inward  and  spiritual  grace.  Inasmuch,  then,  as  Roman  law 
was  the  most  durable  material  in  that  vast  imperial  edifice  the 
ruins  of  which  so  long  overshadowed  Europe,  we  can  well  understand 
that  its  fragments  should  be  incorporated  into  almost  all  the  lesser 
structures  which  have  since  been  reared  by  the  mind  of  Western 
peoples. 


PROBLEMS   OF   ROMAN   LEGAL  HISTORY 

BY    MUNROE   SMITH 

[Mtinroe  Smith,  J.U.D.,  Professor  of  Roman  Law  and  Comparative  Jurisprudence, 
Columbia  University,  b.  Brooklyn,  N.  Y.,  1854.  A.B.  Amherst  College,  1874; 
Columbia  University  Law  School,  1875-77;  LL.B.  ihid.  1877;  Berlin.  Leipzig, 
and  Gottingen  Universities,  1877-80;  J.U.D.  Gottingen,  1880;  Lecturer  on 
Roman  Law,  Columbia  University,  1880-91 ;  Adjunct  Professor  of  History, 
ihid.  1883-91;  Lecturer  on  Roman  Law,  Georgetown  University  Law  School, 
1902-05;  Fellow  of  New  York  Academy  of  Political  Science,  Member  American 
Historical  Association,  American  Political  Science  Association,  Societe  de 
Legislation  Comparee,  Internationale  vereinigung  fiir  vergleichende  Rechts- 
wissenschaft.  Author  of  Bismarck  and  German  Unity,  1898;  chief  editor  Polit- 
ical Science  Quarterly.] 

To  attempt  to  recapitulate,  within  the  Umits  of  a  spoken  address, 
the  unsolved  problems  of  Roman  legal  history  would  be  an  absurdity. 
Such  an  undertaking  would  make  it  necessary  for  us  to  follow  the 
development  of  the  Roman  law  from  the  Twelve  Tables  to  Justinian's 
law-books  in  order  to  indicate  what  portions  of  this  millennial  move- 
ment are  still  obscure.  Even  then  the  survey  would  be  incomplete, 
since  the  history  of  the  Roman  law  neither  begins  with  the  Twelve 
Tables  nor  ends  with  Justinian.  It  begins  at  that  unknown  date 
when  Rome  began,  and  it  has  not  ended  yet.  To  select  a  narrower 
period  and  to  single  out  what  seem  the  more  important  problems 
would  be  more  feasible;  but  the  mere  enumeration  of  difficulties 
would  be  neither  interesting  nor  profitable. 

The  best  excuse  for  a  paper  on  the  problems  of  any  science  is  the 
writer's  conviction  or  hope  that  he  may  be  able  to  make  some  con- 
tribution toward  their  solution,  if  it  be  only  by  suggesting  un worked 
lines  of  investigation  which  appear  to  him  to  promise  useful  results. 
It  is  my  belief  that  for  the  most  important  period  of  Roman  legal 
history  —  the  period  in  which  the  ancient  Roman  law,  pubhc  and 
private,  reached  its  highest  development,  and  which  extended, 
roughly  speaking,  from  the  middle  of  the  third  century  b.  c.  to  the 
middle  of  the  third  century  a.  d.  —  there  is  a  promising  method  of 
investigation  or  line  of  approach  which  as  yet  has  been  scantly 
utilized.  The  method  which  I  advocate  is  that  of  comparison;  and 
the  comparison  which  I  suggest  is  with  Anglo-American  legal  de- 
velopment from  the  thirteenth  century  to  the  present  day. 

The  older  lines  of  investigation  seem  tq  be  worked  out.  It  is  not 
likely  that  new  material  of  importance  will  be  discovered;  we  can 
hardly  hope  for  a  second  find  like  the  fourth  book  of  the  Institutes  of 
Gains;  and  all  direct  methods  of  interpreting  the  existing  sources 
have  been  so  diligently  and  ably  exploited  by  European  jurists,  from 
Cujacius  to  Mommsen  and  Lenel,  that  every  student  of  the  Roman 


316  HISTORY  OF   ROMAN   LAW 

law  now  has  the  instinctive  feeUng  that  a  new  interpretation  is 
probably  a  very  doubtful  interpretation. 

The  usefulness  and  the  limitations  of  the  comparative  method  of 
studying  legal  history  perhaps  need  more  accurate  definition  than 
they  have  yet  received.  The  assumption  on  which  comparative 
jurisprudence  is  based  is  the  essential  identity  of  human  nature 
everywhere.  The  inference  is  that  social  developments  among  all 
peoples  would  be  identical  if  all  had  reached  the  same  stage  of  de- 
velopment and  were  living  under  identical  conditions.  In  this  last 
qualification  we  have  the  first  and  most  important  limitation  upon 
the  comparative  method.  Conditions  are  never  identical:  they  are 
at  most  broadly  similar.  Accordingly,  the  working  hypothesis  on 
which  comparative  jurisprudence  proceeds  is  that  peoples  in  the 
same  general  stage  of  social  development  are  likely  to  approach 
social  problems  from  similar  starting-points  and  to  attempt  their 
solution  on  similar  lines.  The  inference  is  that  a  fully  known  develop- 
ment in  one  nation  may  help  us  to  interpret  a  partly  known  develop- 
ment in  another  nation.  Proceeding  with  proper  caution,  we  may 
even  fill  gaps  in  the  historical  record  of  one  system  by  examining  the 
intermediate  links  in  a  similar  chain  of  development  in  another 
system.  Such  reconstructions,  it  is  needless  to  say,  will  seldom  be 
indisputable,  but  they  will  be  more  nearly  correct  than  the  products 
of  the  historical  imagination. 

Another  limitation  upon  the  comparative  method,  as  an  agency 
in  historical  reconstruction,  is  found  in  the  fact  that  different  legal 
systems  do  not  develop  in  absolute  isolation.  The  history  of  human 
law,  as  of  all  civilization,  is  largely  a  history  of  borrowings.  I  think, 
however,  that  this  limitation  is  fully  appreciated  by  students,  and 
that  there  is  at  the  present  time  little  danger  that  it  will  be  disre- 
garded. The  tendency  of  historical  jurisprudence  now,  as  in  the  past, 
is  rather  to  exaggerate  than  to  overlook  the  borrowed  elements  in 
each  legal  development.  Be'cause  the  Romans  had  certain  institu- 
tions which  were  not  primitive  and  which  resembled  Greek  institu- 
tions, and  because  similar  institutions  existed  at  a  still  earlier  date 
in  Egypt  and  in  Babylon,  there  has  been  an  over-readiness  among 
students  to  assume,  without  sufficient  evidence,  a  series  of  imitations 
and  an  unbroken  chain  of  derivation.  Reasoning  of  this  sort  has 
attributed  to  Roman  sources  not  a  few  English  institutions  which  on 
closer  investigation  appear  to  be  independent  products,  as  truly 
English  as  they  were  truly  Roman,  or,  to  put  it  more  accurately, 
neither  English  nor  Roman  but  human.  Their  similarity  is  due 
to  the  similar  working  of  the  legal  mind  under  analogous  con- 
ditions. 

It  must  be  granted,  however,  that  the  comparative  method  is  to 
be  used  with  caution;    that  the  movements  compared  should  be 


PROBLEMS  OF  ROMAN   LEGAL  HISTORY  317 

intrinsically  comparable;  and  that  allowance  should  be  made  for 
possible  borrowings. 

Given  these  limitations,  it  is  not  surprising  that  comparative 
study  of  legal  institutions  for  purely  scientific  purposes  has  thus  far 
been  confined  for  the  most  part  to  the  field  of  early  law.  There  has 
been  greater  safety  here,  because  the  conditions  of  social  existence 
are  more  uniform  among  barbarous  peoples  than  among  civilized 
nations,  and  because  such  peoples  are  less  likely  to  know  and  to 
imitate  foreign  customs. 

In  this  part  of  the  field  the  application  of  the  comparative  method 
to  the  problems  of  Roman  legal  history  has  already  yielded  valuable 
results.  The  comparative  study  of  early  law  in  general  has  thrown 
light  into  many  corners  which  were  hopelessly  dark  to  the  later  Ro- 
mans themselves.  "  Not  for  all  things  estabhshed  by  our  ancestors," 
wrote  Julian,  "can  a  reason  be  assigned";  but  for  quite  a  number 
of  the  things  which  the  later  Romans  found  inexplicable  we  are  now 
able  to  assign  reasons  that  are  not  merely  plausible  but  convincing. 

To  the  later  and  more  important  stages  of  Roman  legal  develop- 
ment —  to  the  pubhc  law  of  the  later  Republic,  and  to  the  civil  and 
praetorian  law  of  the  later  Republic  and  of  the  early  Empire  —  the 
comparative  method  has  not  been  applied,  or  has  been  applied 
sporadically  only  and  with  little  result.  The  reason  is  very  simple. 
The  jurists  of  Continental  Europe  have  rightly  felt  that  the  other 
and  more  modern  legal  systems  with  which  they  are  acquainted  are 
not  available  for  comparison.  As  regards  public  law,  they  have 
been  living  under  absolute  monarchies  or  under  constitutional 
monarchies  in  which  the  crown  is  still  a  real  force.  They  have  had 
no  personal  and  vital  acquaintance  with  repubUcan  government 
conducted  on  a  large  scale  and  maintained  for  a  long  period  —  no 
such  experience  as  Englishmen  have  had  in  substance  for  two  cen- 
turies and  Americans  in  form  and  in  substance  both  for  more  than 
a  century.  As  far  as  popular  participation  in  national  government 
has  been  introduced  in  the  larger  European  states,  it  has  been 
borrowed  from  England  and  adapted  to  Continental  conditions. 
As  regards  private  law,  the  Continental  European  jurists  have  had 
personal  and  vital  acquaintance  with  only  two  systems:  the  remnants 
of  the  old  Germanic  law  —  a  law  arrested  in  its  development  in  the 
tenth  century  —  and  the  law  of  the  later  Roman  Empire,  which 
at  the  close  of  the  Middle  Ages  they  borrowed  en  bloc,  and  which 
they  have  since  been  assimilating  and  modifying.  The  one  Germanic 
system  which  has  had  an  unimpeded  and  continuous  development,  the 
one  modern  system  which  has  an  independent  history  comparable 
in  its  duration  with  that  of  the  Roman  law,  is  to  them  almost  a 
closed  book.  On  the  other  hand,  the  English,  who  have  the  data  for 
comparison,  have  done  Uttle  serious  work  in  the  field  of  Roman  legal 


318  HISTORY  OF  ROMAN   LAW 

history,  and  the  best  of  that  work  has  been  done  in  the  field  of  Roman 
public  law.  In  the  field  of  private  law  they  have  relied  on  French  and 
German  writers,  not  only  for  the  historic  facts,  but  for  the  inter- 
pretation of  those  facts. 

But,  it  will  be  asked,  are  the  modern  Anglo-American  and  the 
ancient  Roman  legal  sj'^stems  fairly  comparable  quantities?  Are 
there  such  broad  analogies  in  their  general  development  as  to  war- 
rant the  hope  that  a  minute  study  of  the  one  will  be  serviceable  in 
interpreting  the  other?  I  grant  the  differences;  they  are  sufficiently 
evident;  but  I  insist  on  fundamental  although  less  obvious  analogies. 
The  constitution  of  the  Roman  Republic  was  substantially  an 
unwritten  law,  as  is  the  English  Constitution.  It  consisted  of  pre- 
cedents, that  is,  of  adjustments  reached  in  the  political  field  at  the 
close  of  political  conflicts.  Of  these  adjustments  only  a  part  was 
incorporated  by  the  Romans  or  has  been  incorporated  by  the  English 
in  declaratory  statutes.  In  establishing  their  Republic,  the  Romans 
retained  their  ancient  kingship  for  ceremonial  purposes,  housing  the 
rex  sacrorum  in  the  old  royal  palace  and  parading  him  as  figurehead 
of  the  state  church.  The  real  powers  of  the  kingship  in  church  and 
in  state  were  intrusted  to  officials;  and  these  in  the  Latin  Repub- 
lic were  elected  by  political  parties.  The  English  have  retained  a 
less  shadowy  kingship,  but  they  have  transferred  the  really  import- 
ant powers  of  the  crown  to  a  small  body  of  officials  who  represent 
the  dominant  party  in  an  elective  assembly.  The  Romans  put 
their  ex-magistrates  into  their  Senate,  the  English  keep  their  ex- 
ministers  in  their  Privy  Council.  The  American  Constitution  is 
indeed  a  written  one,  but  there  has  grown  up  beside  it  a  body  of 
authoritative  precedents.  The  American  executive  bears  more  re- 
semblance on  the  whole  than  does  the  English  premier  to  a  Ro- 
man consul.  He  is  freer  in  his  action  than  the  consul  in  that  he 
has  no  colleague  to  control  him.  A  shrewd  Frenchman,  M.  Raoul 
Frary,  has  remarked  that  England  is  a  republic  with  an  hereditary 
president,  while  the  United  States  is  a  monarchy  with  an  elective 
king.  The  common  element  and  the  fundamental  element  in  all  three 
constitutions  is  the  exercise  of  governmental  power  by  men  selected 
by  party  organizations. 

Great  Britain,  like  Rome,  has  built  up  a  world-empire;  and  like 
Rome  it  has  combined  domestic  liberty  with  external  power  by 
limiting  governmental  authority  at  home  and  permitting  it  to  act 
freely  abroad.  The  reserve  powers  of  the  British  crown  furnish 
the  constitutional  historian  with  a  modern  instance  of  the  imperium 
militiae  of  the  Roman  consul.  The  viceroy  or  governor  is  the  English 
equivalent  of  the  proconsul  or  propraetor;  and  colonial  affairs  are 
controlled  by  the  British  Privy  Council  as  provincial  affairs  were  con- 
trolled by  the  Roman  Senate.    As  a  matter  of  policy,  Great  Britain 


PROBLEMS  OF   ROMAN   LEGAL  HISTORY  319 

has  conceded,  as  did  Rome  in  the  republican  and  early  imperial 
periods,  a  large  measure  of  local  self-government  to  its  subjects 
beyond  the  seas.  In  both  empires  we  find  the  war  power  and  the 
control  of  diplomatic  relations  in  the  hands  of  the  home  government, 
the  ordinary  administration  decentralized  and  left  in  the  hands  of 
local  authorities. 

The  United  States,  after  rounding  out  its  continental  domain,  has 
recently  acquired  possessions  beyond  the  seas.  In  dealing  with  them 
it  is  somewhat  embarrassed  by  the  absence  from  its  written  con- 
stitution of  indefinite  and  general  governmental  power  —  power 
corresponding  to  the  Roman  imperium  militiae  or  to  the  residuary 
authority  of  the  British  crown.  This  difficulty  was  felt  a  century  ago, 
when  the  process  of  continental  expansion  was  beginning;  and  each 
successive  exigency  has  been  met,  and  is  being  met,  by  the  develop- 
ment in  our  unwritten  constitution  of  the  war  powers  of  the  Amer- 
ican president.  In  the  administration  of  its  earlier  continental 
acquisitions,  the  United  States,  following  the  example  of  Rome 
and  of  Great  Britain,  encouraged  the  development  of  local  self- 
government;  and  it  is  following  the  same  policy  in  its  new  insular 
dependencies. 

In  the  expansion  of  Great  Britain  and  of  the  United  States,  as  in 
the  expansion  of  Rome,  the  fact  of  central  interest  is  the  upbuilding 
of  empire  by  a  free  people;  and  in  the  English  and  American  empires 
—  if  the  insular  dependencies  of  the  United  States  are  to  be  dignified 
with  so  high-sounding  a  title  as  empire  —  the  fundamental  problem 
is  the  same  which  confronted  the  statesmen  of  Republican  Rome, 
namely,  the  reconciliation  of  empire  with  liberty. 

One  of  the  devices  of  Roman  public  law  for  limiting  governmental 
power  at  home  was  an  elaborate  system  of  checks  and  balances. 
The  power  of  every  official  was  limited  in  its  practical  exercise  by 
the  independent  and  possibly  opposing  powers  of  other  officials. 
In  the  hierarchy  of  superior  and  inferior  officials  which  constitutes 
the  administrative  system  of  the  modern  European  state,  no  such 
checks  as  these  exist;  but  they  are  familiar  to  the  English  public 
lawyer,  and  they  have  been  greatly  multiplied  in  American  con- 
stitutional law.  In  the  place  of  administrative  control  of  the  inferior 
by  the  superior,  which  is  so  highly  developed  in  modern  European 
law,  the  English  and  American  law,  like  the  Roman,  has  developed 
control  through  the  ordinary  courts.  When,  for  example,  a  Roman 
aedile  destroyed  merchandise  which  obstructed  the  public  highway, 
the  legitimacy  of  his  action  was  tested  at  Rome,  not  by  appeal  to 
the  consul,  but  by  an  action  to  recover  damages  for  illegal  destruc- 
tion of  property,  just  as  a  similar  exercise  of  police  power  would  be 
tested  in  Great  Britain  or  in  the  United  States. 

It  may  finally  be  noted  that  contemporary  poUtical  conditions  in 


320  HISTORY  OF  ROMAN  LAW 

the  United  States  help  us  rightly  to  understand  the  dramatic  final 
century  of  the  Roman  RepubHc.  When  we  cease  to  view  that  period 
through  the  eyes  of  European  scholars,  we  shall  recognize  that  its 
salient  characteristic  was  the  appearance  on  a  magnificent  scale  of 
those  pohtical  personages  whom  we  call  "bosses";  and  we  shall  dis- 
cover that  the  Latin  word  for  boss  was  princeps.  Princeps,  Momm- 
sen  tells  us,  was  a  word  commonly  used  in  the  later  Republic  to 
designate  the  most  prominent  citizens.  The  definition  might  be 
more  exact.  The  citizens  who  were  designated  as  principes  —  men 
like  Sulla  and  Pompey  and  Crassus  and  Julius  Caesar  —  were 
prominent  before  all  things  in  political  management.  They  were 
the  men  who  controlled  the  machinery  of  the  senatorial  and  popular 
parties.  The  members  of  the  first  triumvirate  —  a  body  which  an' 
American  politician  would  instinctively  designate  as  "The  Big 
Three  "  —  were  described  by  Cicero  as  principes.  In  our  federal 
system  of  government,  we  have  not  developed  any  boss  whose 
authority  reaches  beyond  the  limits  of  a  single  state;  we  have  no 
national  bosses;  and  if  we  had  them,  our  constitutional  and  ad- 
ministrative arrangements  are  such  that  even  a  national  boss  could 
not  readily  put  himself  at  the  head  of  a  large  mercenary  army  in 
New  Mexico  or  in  Alaska,  and  upset  the  government  by  marching 
on  Washington.  These  variations,  however,  do  not  affect  the  sub- 
stantial identity  in  political  science  of  our  boss  and  the  Roman 
princeps;  and  this  identification  enables  us  to  understand  that  the 
official  theory  of  Augustus  and  of  his  immediate  successors  —  the 
theory  that  the  free  commonwealth  was  still  in  existence  —  did  not 
seem  to  the  Roman  public  to  be  a  fiction.  Augustus  was  not  an 
emperor  in  our  sense  of  the  word;  he  was  simply  the  boss  raised  to 
his  highest  terms;  and  that  consuls  and  praetors  and  all  the  other 
officers  of  government  were  elected  on  his  nomination,  and  that  the 
Senate  was  filled  with  his  henchmen  —  these  were  the  familiar  ac- 
companiments of  boss  rule.  From  this  point  of  view,  we  can  fully 
understand  Pliny's  remark,  that  the  very  men  who  were  most  averse 
to  recognizing  anything  like  monarchy  (dominatio)  had  no  objection 
to  the  authority  of  a  boss  (princeps). 

The  development  of  the  Roman  boss  into  an  emperor  was  made 
possible  by  his  control  of  the  army.  For  this  development  English 
constitutional  history  affords  no  parallel,  unless  in  the  protectorate 
of  Cromwell;  and  here  the  evolution  into  monarchy  remained  in- 
complete. To  find  any  really  parallel  processes  in  modern  constitu- 
tional history  we  must  turn  to  the  Latin  peoples. 

In  the  field  of  private  law,  however,  the  movement  in  the  earlj' 
Empire  was  substantially  a  continuation  of  that  in  the  late  Republic ; 
and  during  both  periods  the  processes  by  which  the  Roman  law,  civil 
and  praetorian,  was  developed,  were  fundamentally  the  same  as 


PROBLEMS   OF   ROMAN   LEGAL  HISTORY  321 

those  by  which  Anglo- American  law  and  equity  have  been  developed. 
This  fundamental  similarity  is  not  generally  appreciated,  because  the 
mode  in  which  the  Roman  law  was  developed  is  not  commonly  under- 
stood. We  read  in  every  legal  history  that  the  Roman  civil  law  was 
cast  into  the  form  of  a  code,  the  famous  Twelve  Tables,  about  four 
and  a  half  centuries  b.  c,  and  that  the  further  development  of  this 
law  was  accomplished  chiefly  by  interpretation  of  the  Twelve  Tables. 
We  read  also  that  the  interpretation  which  was  accepted  as  author- 
itative, and  by  which  the  law  was  developed,  did  not  proceed  from 
judges,  but  until  the  third  century  b.  c.  from  a  college  of  priests, 
and  after  that  time  from  a  small  number  of  private  citizens  who 
were  known  as  juris prudentes.  The  English  common  law,  on  the  other 
hand,  as  we  all  know,  has  been  built  up  by  judicial  decisions:  it  is 
simply  the  permanent  practice  of  the  tribunals.  At  first  glance  it 
does  not  seem  as  if  these  two  processes  were  analogous.  On  closer 
inspection,  however,  the  differences  are  seen  to  be  superficial.  The 
law  of  the  Twelve  Tables  was  not  a  code  in  the  modern  sense  of  the 
word;  it  was  simply  a  collection  of  the  principal  rules  of  early 
Roman  customary  law.  From  the  point  of  view  of  comparative  juris- 
prudence, it  belongs  to  the  same  class  as  the  continental  German 
leges  and  the  Anglo-Saxon  dooms  of  the  early  Middle  Ages  (fifth  to 
the  ninth  centuries).  It  has  recently  been  asserted  by  a  prominent 
Italian  historian  that  the  Twelve  Tables  were  probably  a  private 
compilation,  and  that  the  story  of  their  construction  by  the  decemvirs 
and  of  their  submission  to  and  acceptance  by  the  Roman  popular 
assembly  deserves  no  more  credit  than  the  legend  of  the  slaying  of 
Virginia  which  forms  a  part  of  the  narrative  of  the  decemviral 
activity.  Still  more  recently  this  thesis  has  been  defended  with  great 
ingenuity  by  a  distinguished  French  legal  historian.  I  myself  have 
not  been  convinced  by  their  arguments;  I  still  cling  to  the  belief  that 
the  essential  part  of  the  Roman  story  is  probably  correct,  and  that  the 
Twelve  Tables  were  probably  accepted  by  a  Roman  assembly  as 
the  German  leges  were  accepted  a  thousand  years  later  by  German 
tribal  assemblies.  For  my  present  purpose,  however,  the  answer 
to  this  historical  question  is  not  material.  In  the  later  Republic  the 
compilation  known  as  the  Twelve  Tables  was  officially  regarded  as 
a  lex;  it  was  revered  as  a  charter  of  popular  rights  and  as  the  cradle 
of  the  civil  law;  but  it  was  interpreted  with  as  much  freedom  as  if 
it  had  been  merely  a  private  statement  of  the  rules  governing  the 
administration  of  justice  in  a  far-away  and  semi-barbarous  age.  It 
really  exercised  little  more  influence  on  the  administration  of  justice 
during  the  last  century  of  the  Roman  RepubUc  than  the  laws  of 
Alfred  exercised  upon  the  administration  of  justice  in  the  reign  of 
Elizabeth.  The  compilation  had  been  surrounded  for  generations  by 
a  growing  mass  of  interpretation,  which  had  so  modified  and  sup- 


322  HISTORY   OF   ROMAN   LAW 

plemented  its  primitive  and  scanty  provisions  that  for  all  practical 
purposes  the  interpretation  and  not  the  lex  was  the  law. 

The  first  seeming  distinction  between  the  development  of  Roman 
civil  and  English  common  law  thus  disappears.  Each  represents  a 
development  from  rude  and  simple  custom  into  a  highly  refined  and 
complex  jurisprudence  by  means  of  interpretation.  There  remains, 
however,  the  apparent  difference  between  the  interpreters.  What 
was  there  in  common  between  the  jurists  of  republican  Rome  and 
the  king's  judges  in  England?  To  answer  this  question  we  must 
consider  the  position  and  activity  of  the  Roman  jurists.  They 
obviously  were  not  judges  in  the  ordinary  sense,  for  they  did  not 
hear  pleadings  or  try  cases.  At  the  first  glance,  they  rather  resembled 
our  lawyers,  for  they  gave  advice  to  all  who  chose  to  consult  them. 
They  helped  their  clients  to  avoid  trouble  by  drafting  contracts, 
wills,  and  other  instruments;  and  when  trouble  had  arisen,  they 
gave  opinions  (responsa)  on  the  legal  points  at  issue.  So  far  at 
least  their  activities  were  those  of  practicing  lawyers.  But  they 
differed  from  all  other  practicing  lawyers  of  whom  we  know  anything 
in  two  important  respects.  In  the  first  place,  they  did  not  take 
charge  of  cases  in  litigation,  either  as  attorneys  or  as  barristers.  They 
were  willing  neither  to  prepare  cases  for  trial  nor  to  argue  cases 
before  the  courts.  Such  matters  were  attended  to  by  professional 
orators  like  Cicero.  Cicero  was  a  lawyer  in  our  sense,  but  at  Rome 
he  was  never  regarded  as  a  jurist.  In  the  second  place,  while  the 
Roman  jurists  were  always  ready  to  furnish  opinions,  they  neither 
expected  nor  accepted  pecuniary  rewards.  The  rewards  at  which 
they  aimed  were  the  gratitude  of  those  whom  they  had  served,  the 
confidence  of  the  public,  and  eventual  election  to  political  office. 
As  practicing  lawyers  they  were,  accordingly,  servants  of  the  public 
in  general  rather  than  servants  of  their  special  clients. 

To  appreciate  how  far  the  Roman  jurists  discharged  the  same 
function  as  the  English  judges,  we  must  note  how  controversies  were 
actually  decided  under  each  of  these  two  great  systems  of  law. 
Controversies  were  actually  decided  at  Rome,  not  by  the  magistrate 
who  heard  the  pleadings,  but  by  indices,  who  were  private  citizens. 
Similarly,  controversies  have  actually  been  decided  for  the  last  seven 
centuries  in  the  Anglo-American  administration  of  justice  by  juries, 
also  composed  of  private  citizens.  Neither  the  Roman  indices  nor  the 
English  jurymen  were  supposed  to  know  the  law.  As  English  jury- 
men are  instructed  by  the  judges,  so  the  Roman  indices  were  in- 
structed by  the  jurists.  The  instruction  might  be  directly  obtained 
by  a  index  if  he  chose  to  ask  for  it,  but  it  usually  came  to  him  in  the 
form  of  an  opinion  obtained  by  one  of  the  parties.  It  was  of  course 
possible  that  both  parties  might  have  obtained  opinions  from  different 
jurists,  and  it  was  conceivable  that  the  opinions  might  be  conflicting. 


PROBLEMS   OF   ROMAN   LEGAL   HISTORY  323 

Conflicts,  however,  rarely  occurred,  because  the  repubhcan  jurists 
in  giving  their  opinions  were  not  in  the  position  of  paid  advocates 
trying  to  make  out  a  case  for  their  chents;  they  were  in  the  position 
of  unpaid  and  impartial  servants  of  the  public.  Under  these  cir- 
cumstances differences  of  opinion  were  no  more  numerous  than  those 
which  have  always  existed  in  the  English  and  American  courts. 
The  republican  indices  were  not  bound  to  follow  the  opinion  of  any 
jurist;  they  had  the  powers  of  English  criminal  jurors,  they  were 
judges  of  law  and  of  fact  alike.  In  both  systems,  however,  it  is 
noteworthy  that  the  decisions  actually  rendered  by  iiidices  or  by 
jurymen  were  never  cited  as  precedents.  What  was  cited  at  Rome 
was  the  response  of  a  jurist,  and  what  is  cited  in  Anglo-American 
law  is  the  opinion  of  the  court.  Hobbes  perceived  the  fundamental 
analogy  between  the  Roman  jurists  and  the  English  judges  when  he 
declared,  in  his  Leviathan,  that  the  king's  judges  were  not  properly 
judges  but  jurisconsults. 

The  Roman  law  was  thus  developed,  as  the  English  law  has  been 
developed,  not  by  the  decision  of  controversies,  as  is  sometimes  said, 
but  by  the  opinions  expressed  in  connection  with  such  decisions  by 
specially  trained  and  expert  servants  of  the  public.  The  English  judge 
combines  some  of  the  powers  of  a  Roman  praetor  with  the  authority 
of  a  Roman  jurist  —  he  is  half  praetor  and  half  iurisprudens;  but  his 
influence  upon  the  development  of  the  law  has  not  been  praetorian, 
but  jurisprudential. 

It  should  be  noted,  further,  that  single  responsa  did  not  make  law 
at  Rome  any  more  than  instructions  from  judges  to  juries  have  made 
law  in  England  or  in  America.  What  were  regarded  at  Rome  as 
authoritative  precedents  were  the  so-called  "received  opinions,"  that 
is,  the  opinions  which  were  approved  and  followed  by  the  juristic 
class.  In  England  and  in  America,  similarly,  it  is  not  the  prelim- 
inary rulings  or  the  final  instructions  of  the  trial  judges,  but  the 
opinions  of  the  bench  to  which  cases  are  carried  on  appeal,  that 
constitute  precedents;  and  it  is  doubtful  whether  a  decision  of  even 
the  highest  court  in  a  case  of  first  impression  really  makes  law.  It 
seems  the  better  opinion  that  it  is  the  acceptance  of  such  a  decision 
by  professional  opinion  generally  and  its  reaffirmation  by  the  court 
in  later  cases  which  make  it  really  authoritative. 

The  real  difference  between  the  Roman  jurists  and  the  English 
judges  is  that  the  Roman  jurists,  like  the  law-speakers  of  our  German 
ancestors,  were  designated  by  natural  selection.  It  is  interesting  to 
note  that,  before  the  conversion  of  the  Germans  to  Christianity,  their 
law-speakers  were  priests,  just  as  the  older  Roman  jurists  were 
pontifices.  In  the  Frankish  period  the  law-speakers  began  to  be 
artificially  selected;  the  Frankish  counts  appointed  advisers  (rachi- 
neburgi))   and   these  advisers  developed   into   the   scabini  of  the 


324  HISTORY   OF   ROMAN   LAW 

Middle  Ages.  In  other  words,  the  German  law-speaker  is  the  ancestor 
of  the  European  judge.  At  Rome,  also,  in  the  imperial  period,  arti- 
ficial selection  was  substituted  for  natural  selection.  Certain  jurists 
received  from  the  Emperor  "  the  right  of  responding,"  and  the  indices 
were  not  bound  to  consider  any  opinions  except  those  proceeding 
from  these  certified  or  patented  jurists.  This  change  brought  the 
Roman  jurists  a  step  nearer  to  the  Anglo-American  judges.  The 
evolution  was  completed,  as  I  shall  presently  indicate,  in  the  second 
century  after  Christ ;  but  before  describing  the  processes  by  which  law 
was  made  in  the  Empire,  we  must  consider  and  compare  Roman 
praetorian  law  and  English  equity,  in  order  to  see  how  far  the  pro- 
cesses by  which  these  systems  were  developed  present  real  analogies. 

Roman  praetorian  law  and  English  equity  are  in  so  far  analogous 
as  they  both  represent  what  the  Romans  called  ius  honorarium, 
official  law.  In  both  cases  the  new  law  was  produced  by  governmental 
agencies  which  were  not  exclusively  nor  indeed  primarily  judicial  — 
agencies  which  set  themselves  above  the  previously  existing  law,  and 
which  not  merely  supplemented  it  but  overrode  it. 

There  is  a  superficial  difference  between  the  way  in  which  the 
Roman  praetors  made  law  and  the  way  in  which  the  English  chan- 
cellors made  it.  The  praetors  used  the  quasi-legislative  form  of  ordin- 
ance or  "edict";  the  English  chancellors  developed  new  rules  in 
judicial  fashion  by  decisions  rendered  in  single  cases.  When,  however, 
we  examine  the  edicts  of  the  Roman  praetors  and  consider  how  their 
provisions  were  applied,  the  difference  almost  disappears.  The  praetor, 
like  the  chancellor,  was  originally  an  administrative  rather  than 
a  judicial  officer;  but  his  duties  were  in  the  main  judicial:  it  was  his 
chief  business  to  arrange  for  the  termination  of  private  controversies. 
The  edict  which  each  praetor  set  up  at  the  beginning  of  his  year  of 
office  was  not  a  series  of  commands  but  a  programme.  In  it  he  pro- 
vided certain  remedies  and  indicated  under  what  circumstances  each 
remedy  would  be  given.  This  programme  was  carried  out,  as  single 
cases  were  presented,  by  means  of  formulas  sent  to  the  indices.  The 
formula  was  a  command :  if  the  index  found  certain  allegations  of  the 
plaintiff  to  be  true,  and  if  he  did  not  find  certain  other  allegations  of 
the  defendant  to  be  true,  he  was  commanded  to  render  a  certain 
decision.  The  English  chancellor  decided  cases  as  he  saw  fit.  The 
Roman  praetor  caused  cases  to  be  decided  as  he  saw  fit.  A  new  rule 
working  itself  out  in  chancery  was  first  disclosed  in  the  decision  of  the 
special  case  which  suggested  it,  and  any  modification  of  the  new  rule 
was  subsequentlj'"  revealed  in  the  same  way.  Any  new  rules  which  the 
Roman  praetor  intended  to  enforce,  and  any  modifications  which  he 
intended  to  make  in  the  rules  laid  down  by  his  predecessors,  were 
announced  in  advance,  at  the  beginning  of  his  year  of  office.  Funda- 
mentally these  two  methods  of  creating  law  are  identical,  and  they 


PROBLEMS  OF   ROMAN   LEGAL   HISTORY  325 

both  resemble  law-finding  rather  than  law-making.  The  rules  laid 
down  were  suggested  in  both  systems  by  actual  controversies,  and 
they  were  amended  in  both  systems  as  new  controversies  afforded 
new  points  of  view.  In  form  the  Roman  process  was  more  considerate 
of  private  interests.  The  complaint  of  the  English  common  lawyer, 
that  equity  was  administered  according  to  the  length  of  the  chan- 
cellor's foot,  would  have  lost  much  of  its  force  if  the  length  of  the  foot 
had  been  indicated  in  advance. 

The  similarities  of  the  two  movements  are  more  striking  than  the 
formal  differences  between  them.  At  the  outset  neither  the  Roman 
praetor  nor  the  English  chancellor  was  held  to  be  capable  of  making 
or  finding  law  or  of  creating  new  rights.  Each,  however,  could  issue 
orders,  and  each  could  enforce  these  orders  in  personam  by  fine  and 
imprisonment.  Each  was  therefore  able  to  impose  new  sanctions  and 
to  create  new  remedies;  and  eventually,  in  both  systems,  it  was 
recognized  that  where  there  was  a  sanction  there  must  be  a  legal  rule 
and  where  there  was  a  remedy  there  must  be  a  legal  right.  Strictly 
speaking,  the  rules  laid  down  in  the  edicts  of  the  praetors  and  those 
expressed  or  implied  in  English  decisions  in  equity  became  law  by 
force  of  custom.  It  was  by  the  iteration  of  the  same  rule  in  successive 
praetorian  edicts  (edicta  tralatitia)  that  the  Roman  official  law  wa& 
built  up.  It  was  by  the  observance  of  precedents  and  the  develop- 
ment of  a  settled  practice  that  English  equity  came  to  be  a  regular 
part  of  the  English  law. 

There  was,  however,  one  important  historical  difference  between 
the  two  movements.  The  development  of  the  Roman  praetorian  law 
not  only  made  Roman  law  more  equitable,  but  it  introduced  into  that 
law  the  commercial  customs  of  the  Mediterranean  —  customs  which 
apparently  date  back  to  the  Babylonian  Empire.  A  similar  reception 
of  general  commercial  law  took  place  in  England,  but  here  it  came 
later,  after  the  development  of  equity,  and  chiefly  through  the  action 
of  the  common  law  courts.  In  both  cases,  however,  as  Goldschmidt 
has  pointed  out,  commercial  law  was  not  brought  in  as  a  distinct  and 
separate  system,  as  in  the  modern  continental  European  states,  but 
the  general  law  was  commercialized.  The  English  law  was  commercial- 
ized by  decisions  of  the  common  law  courts,  largely  rendered  in  the 
eighteenth  century,  just  as  the  Roman  law  had  been  commercialized 
by  praetorian  edicts  in  the  second  and  first  centuries  b.  c. 

In  the  Roman  imperial  period  the  processes  of  law-making  became 
more  obviously  similar  to  the  processes  by  which  law  has  been  devel- 
oped in  modern  times.  Under  the  Empire  law-finding  gradually 
became  altogether  governmental.  The  first  step  in  this  direction  was 
taken,  as  we  have  seen,  when  the  jurists  became  representatives 'and 
agents  of  the  Emperors.  The  next  step  was  the  establishment  of  new 
courts,  civil  and  criminal,  in  which  imperial  officials  heard  the  plead- 


326  HISTORY  OF  ROMAN  LAW 

ings  and  the  evidence  and  rendered  the  decisions  (iudida  extraor- 
dinaria).  The  last  step  was  to  transform  the  surviving  courts  of  the 
older  republican  type  —  the  praetorian  courts  —  into  purely  govern- 
mental courts.  This  change  was  accomplished  by  substituting  for 
independent  citizen  indices  subaltern  officers  of  the  court  itself,  mere 
referees.  This  last  change  brought  the  Roman  courts  into  sub- 
stantially the  same  form  as  the  European  continental  courts  of  the 
present  day.  To  describe  the  change  in  English  phraseology,  not  only 
did  the  magistrates  become  judges,  but  jury  trial  was  abolished. 

In  proportion  as  law-finding  was  governmentalized,  it  was  also 
centralized.  From  the  judgments  of  the  independent  indices  appeals 
had  never  been  permitted.  From  the  decision  of  the  imperial  judges 
appeals  ran  to  the  Emperor  or  to  such  higher  judges  as  he  might 
designate.  In  the  imperial  council,  or  rather  in  that  branch  of  the 
council  which  came  to  be  known  as  the  auditory,  the  Roman  Empire 
obtained  a  supreme  court  of  appellate  jurisdiction. 

In  connection  with  these  changes,  all  the  more  important  offices  of 
a  judicial  character  came  to  be  filled  by  the  patented  jurists.  During 
the  republican  period  and  under  the  first  emperors,  the  jurists  might 
occasionally  act  as  indices  and  they  frequently  became  magistrates; 
but  their  control  over  law-finding,  although  practically  complete,  was 
for  the  most  part  indirect.  The  great  Roman  jurists  of  the  second  and 
third  centuries  of  the  Christian  era  were  judges  in  the  modem  sense ; 
and  it  was  by  their  direct  activity,  that  is,  by  their  decisions  on  points 
of  law,  and  particularly  by  the  decisions  rendered  in  the  imperial 
auditory,  that  the  law  of  the  Empire  was  chiefly  developed.  Their 
decisions  were  reported  and  digested  in  their  own  writings.  To 
describe  the  juristic  literature  of  the  early  Empire  as  "  legal  theory  " 
is  to  misrepresent  its  character  and  its  authority.  It  was  "  juris- 
prudence" in  the  modem  French  sense,  i.  e.  settled  juridical  practice. 
If  the  eminent  European  scholars  who  have  written  the  standard 
histories  of  the  Roman  law  had  been  familiar  with  the  development 
of  Anglo-American  law,  they  would  readily  have  recognized  the  true 
character  of  the  legal  literature  of  the  Roman  Empire. 

In  the  early  Empire,  as  in  the  Republic,  direct  legislation  played 
only  a  subordinate  part  in  the  development  of  the  law.  After  the 
middle  of  the  third  century,  when  the  production  of  juristic  literature 
ceased,  it  is  commonly  assumed  that  all  legal  change  was  made  by 
direct  imperial  legislation.  As  late  as  the  beginning  of  the  fourth  cen- 
tury, however,  the  law  was  still  developing  largely  by  decisions.  The 
imperial  rescripts  which  date  from  the  latter  part  of  the  third  and  the 
early  part  of  the  fourth  centuries,  and  which  constitute  so  important 
a  part  of  Justinian's  Codex,  are  case-law,  that  is,  they  are  decisions 
reached  by  the  imperial  supreme  court;  and  for  the  most  part  these 
rescripts  are  fully  up  to  the  level  of  the  previous  century.    It  was 


PROBLEMS   OF  ROMAN   LEGAL   HISTORY  327 

not  until  the  fourth  century  that  the  Emperors  began  to  declare  that 
rescripts  issued  in  single  cases  were  not  to  be  regarded  as  establishing 
general  rules.  Then,  indeed,  legislation  became  almost  the  sole  factor 
of  legal  development.  This  change,  however,  was  not  the  result  of 
a  progressive  evolution;  it  was  a  symptom  of  degeneration.  Judicial 
decisions  ceased  to  be  regarded  because  jurisprudence  had  sunk  to  so 
low  an  ebb  that  the  decisions  were  not  worth  regarding.  The  older 
case-law,  however,  stood  in  undiminished  honor  and  authority.  Much 
of  it  was  saved  in  Justinian's  Digest,  some  of  it  in  his  Codex.  Only 
in  these  casuistic  portions  of  Justinian's  compilation  were  there  seeds 
of  life;  and  from  the  close  of  the  eleventh  to  the  close  of  the  nine- 
teenth century  these  seeds  have  yielded  rich  and  renewed  harvests. 

The  subject  assigned  me,  with  which  I  have  been  taking  certain 
liberties,  is  not  European  legal  history  nor  legal  history  in  general,  nor 
comparative  jurisprudence,  but  Roman  legal  history;  and  for  this 
reason  I  have  thus  far  confined  myself  to  indicating  how  largely  the 
study  of  English  legal  history  may  be  expected  to  help  us  to  a  deeper 
and  truer  comprehension  of  Roman  legal  history.  I  trust,  in  closing, 
that  I  may  be  permitted  to  take  a  further  liberty  with  my  theme, 
and  to  indicate  that  a  careful  study  of  Roman  legal  history  will  be  of 
great  service  to  the  Englishman  or  American  who  desires  to  compre- 
hend his  own  legal  history.  I  lay  little  stress  on  the  point  that  we  may 
thus  recognize  what  has  been  borrowed;  I  desire  chiefly  to  insist 
upon  the  point  that  we  may  thus  better  appreciate  the  true  character 
of  English  legal  history  as  an  independent  development.  Furnished 
with  a  knowledge  of  the  Roman  law  and  of  its  development,  the 
English  investigator  will  more  accurately  gauge  by  comparison  the 
excellencies  and  the  defects  of  the  English  law.  He  may  not  find,  as  is 
commonly  claimed,  that  the  Roman  law  is  more  scientific,  —  a  claim 
which  I  take  to  mean  that  its  broader  generalizations  are  more  cor- 
rect, —  but  he  will  certainly  find  that  the  Roman  law  is  more  artistic. 
The  sense  of  relation,  of  proportion,  of  harmony,  which  the  Greeks 
possessed  and  which  they  utilized  in  shaping  matter  into  forms  of 
beauty,  the  Romans  possessed  also,  but  the  material  in  which  they 
wrought  was  the  whole  social  life  of  man.  There  was  profound  truth 
in  the  saying  of  the  Roman  jurist  that  law  was  the  "  Ars  boni  et 
aequi." 

The  comparative  student  will  find  also  that  while  the  English  law 
has  developed  in  certain  directions  further  than  the  Roman,  the 
Roman  law  in  certain  other  respects  had  attained,  at  the  close  of  the 
republican  period,  a  development  which  seems  to  go  beyond  ours. 
This  is  true,  for  instance,  in  the  whole  field  of  commercial  dealings. 
The  great  regard  paid  in  all  commercial  transactions  to  good  faith 
and  the  instincts  of  an  honest  tradesman,  and  in  particular  the 
abandonment  by  the  Romans,  two  thousand  years  ago,  of  the  primi- 


328  HISTORY  OF  ROMAN  LAW 

tive  and  dishonest  doctrine  of  caveat  emptor,  —  a  doctrine  which  the 
English  law  still  unaccountably  retains,  —  point  out  lines  along 
which,  I  believe,  our  own  law  is  bound  to  develop. 

Best  of  all,  the  comparative  student  will  learn  to  distinguish 
between  that  which  is  peculiar  and  therefore  accidental  in  both 
systems  and  that  which  is  common  to  both  and  therefore  presumably 
universal.  It  has  long  been  the  hope  of  some  of  the  greatest  modern 
jurists,  both  in  English-speaking  countries  and  in  Europe,  that  by 
strictly  inductive  study  it  may  be  possible  to  discover  a  real  instead 
of  an  imaginary  natural  law.  The  corresponding  hope  of  the  legal 
historian,  that  it  will  in  time  be  possible  to  formulate  the  great  laws 
that  govern  legal  development,  is  not,  I  believe,  an  idle  dream;  and 
I  am  sure  that  the  minute  comparative  study  of  Roman  and  Anglo- 
American  legal  developments  will  carry  us  further  toward  such  a  goal 
than  any  other  possible  comparison. 


SECTION  B  — HISTORY   OF  COMMON   LAW 


SECTION  B  — HISTORY  OF   COMMON  LAW 


{Hall  11,  September  21,  10  a.  m.) 

Chairman:  Professor  John  D.  Lawson,  University  of  Missouri. 
Speakers:   Honorable  Simeon  E.  Baldwin,  Judge  of  the  Supreme  Court  of 
Errors,  New  Haven,  Conn. 
Professor  John  H.  Wigmore,  Northwestern  University. 
Secretary:  Professor  C.  H.  Huberich,  University  of  Texas. 


THE  HISTORY  OF  THE  COMMON  LAW 

BY   SIMEON   EBEN    BALDWIN 

[Simeon  Eben  Baldwin,  Associate  Justice  of  the  Supreme  Court  of  Errors  of  Con- 
necticut; Professor  of  Constitutional  and  Private  International  Law,  Yale 
University,  b.  New  Haven,  Connecticut,  February  5,  1840.  A.B.  Yale,  1861 ; 
A.M.  ibid.  1864;  student  at  Yale  and  Harvard  Law  Schools;  LL.D.  Harvard, 
1891 ;  member  of  various  state  commissions^  President  American  Bar  Associa- 
tion, 1890;  President  of  Association  of  AmencanLaw  Schools,  1902;  member  of 
National  Institute  of  Arts  and  Letters,  American  Association  for  the  Advance- 
ment of  Science;  President  of  International  Law  Association  of  London,  1899- 
1901;  corresponding  member  of  the  Massachusetts  Historical  Society,  The 
Colonial  Society  of  Massachusetts,  American  Historical  Association,  American 
Political  Science  Association;  President  of  the  Connecticut  Society  of  the  Archae- 
ological Institute  of  America,  1902.  Author  of  Modern  Political  Institutions  ; 
American  Railroad  Law;  Digest  of  Common  Law  Reports  ;  The  American  Judi- 
ciary. Co-author  of  Two  Centuries'  Growth  of  American  Law;  and  other  noted 
works  and  papers  on  law.] 

In  mapping  out  the  field  of  science  for  the  purposes  of  this  Con- 
gress, it  has  been  thought  that  it  could  best  be  presented  for  our 
consideration  in  seven  great  divisions.  There  is  that  of  Rule,  which 
deals  with  universals;  that  of  History,  which  records  the  story  of 
mankind  in  recent  time;  that  of  Physics,  which  looks  to  our  material 
environment;  that  of  the  Mind,  which  makes  little  of  environment; 
that  of  Utility,  which  makes  the  most  of  it;  that  of  Social  Regulation, 
which  applies  law  to  society;  and  that  of  Culture,  which  creates 
character. 

Nominative  science  can  tell  us  of  the  philosophy  of  law.  Physical 
science  can  show  how  law  succeeded  savagery,  and  to  what  extent 
it  has  been  moulded  by  climatic  and  geographical  conditions.  Mental 
science  discloses  the  subject  of  law  and  is  our  guide  in  methods  of 
judicial  procedure.  Utilitarian  and  regulative  science  apply  it  to 
its  proper  objects  in  a  proper  way.  Cultural  science  rests  upon  it  and 
presupposes  it. 

In  considering  the  history  of  law,  it  has  been  deemed  convenient 
to  confine  the  discussions  of  this  department  of  the  Congress  to  the 
consideration  of  the  two  kinds  of  law  which  have  had  the  greatest 


332  HISTORY  OF  COMMON  LAW 

influence  on  the  modem  world,  and  a  comparison  of  the  various  legal 
systems  which  have  been  their  fruit. 

Whatever  preceded  the  Roman  law  may,  for  the  purposes  of  trac- 
ing the  development  of  legal  institutions,  not  only  in  Europe  and 
America,  but  now  to  a  large  extent  in  Asia,  be  regarded  as  merged 
in  it.  The  unwritten  law  took  on  written  form  as  a  finality  so  far 
as  government  could  accomplish  it,  under  Justinian.  But  soon  there 
came,  or  began  to  be  more  manifest  what  had  long  been  growing  up 
under  the  institutions  of  a  decaying  empire,  or  beyond  their  reach, 
the  upgrowth  of  other  unwritten  rules  which  at  last,  in  every  Euro- 
pean community,  large  or  small,  took  shape  as  its  common  law. 

Why  was  it  that  the  Roman  law  was  never  put  in  formal  order 
until  Rome  had  ceased  to  be  the  mistress  of  the  world  ? 

Why  was  it  that  later  ages  achieved  more  with  the  ruder  instru- 
ments of  what  seemed  disorder  and  was  diversity? 

Is  it  not  that  law,  when  distinguished  from  morals  and  considered 
as  a  social  rule,  is  personal  or  local  rather  than  universal  in  its  essential 
attributes? 

How  much  of  it  is  there  of  which  it  can  truly  be  said  with  Cicero^ 
that  it  is  not  one  law  at  Athens,  another  at  Rome,  but  one,  un- 
changing, and  eternal? 

The  history  of  religion  shows  us  that  the  early  ministers  of 
religion  have  sought  to  giv«  to  law  a  sacred  character,  and  make  it 
the  word  of  God.  In  one  sense  we  may  still  afiirm  this.  In  another 
we  cannot. 

Its  substratum  everywhere  must  be  the  three  rules,  honeste  vivere; 
alterum  non  laedere;  suum  cuigue  tribuere.^  These  bear  the  stamp  of 
divinity.  They  are  questioned  by  no  one,  who  thinks  clearly  and 
fairly;  no  one  at  least  since  the  Christian  era  came  in. 

It  has  been  well  said,  in  describing  the  origin  of  the  English  com- 
mon law,  "that  the  laborer  shall  receive  his  hire;  that  contracts 
shall  be  obUgatory,  and  the  rights  of  property  in  all  its  relations 
respected;  that  personal  security  and  reputation  shall  be  protected 
from  both  malice  and  negligence;  that  the  family  relations  shall  not 
be  disturbed,  nor  equal  justice  refused  to  any  man  —  are  not  propo- 
sitions that  depend  for  their  support  upon  the  customs  of  our  ances- 
tors any  more  than  upon  the  precepts  of  the  Pandects.  They  would 
be  first  principles  in  our  law,  whatever  custom  to  the  contrary  might 
ever  have  prevailed  anywhere.  Indeed,  no  custom  upon  any  sub- 
ject, however  well  established,  will  be  tolerated  by  a  court  of  justice 
if  found  to  contravene  moral  justice,  or  natural  right,  or  those  prin- 
ciples of  the  common  law  that  are  thence  derived."  ' 

*  De  RemMica,  n,  22,  33.  '  Digest,  \,\,De  JusHtia,  et  Jure,  10. 

*  E.  J.  rhelps,  Orations  and  Essays,  103.  Cf.  Bradford  Corporation  v.  Ferrard, 
Law  Reports,  2  Chancery  Div.  655,  661. 


HISTORY  OF  COMMON  LAW  333 

To  courts  under  a  government  less  free  than  England  these  words 
might  not  apply.  Custom  and  authority  may,  at  many  points,  stand 
up  against  a  Naturrecht  and  maintain  their  ground.  But  these 
points  everywhere  become  fewer,  as  civilization  advances.  The 
"general  conscience  of  civilized  men,"  to  quote  from  an  American 
scholar  who  has  done  much  from  the  scientific  side  to  put  our  juris- 
prudence on  a  solid  footing,  "or,  in  other  words,  positive  morality, 
ought  to  be,  and,  in  fact,  ultimately  and  in  the  long  run  is,  the 
paramount  predominating  political  force  in  the  civihzed  world, 
and  ...  it  is  this  that  makes  civilization  possible."  ^ 

The  applications  of  these  principles  of  moral  justice  and  natural 
right  by  legal  rules  must,  however,  vary  from  land  to  land  and  age  to 
age.  One  family,  one  tribe,  one  village  community,  one  folk-mote, 
one  medieval  city,  will  follow  one  line  of  action,  and  another  another. 

Here,  as  a  tribe  grows  into  a  people  and  some  sort  of  judicial 
establishment  is  set  up,  a  certain  mode  of  procedure  is  adopted, 
leading  to  a  certain  doctrine  of  substantive  law;  and  there  the 
choice  of  another  mode  for  the  same  class  of  controversies  may 
end  in  establishing  a  different  right. 

The  causes  of  human  action  indicated  by  history,  when  fully 
ascertained,  are  seldom  those  that  would  have  been  reasoned  out 
by  philosophers  to  whom  that  history  was  unknown. 

Law  is  the  voice  of  order:  human  law  of  order  in  organized  society. 
But  who  utters  the  voice?  How  often  does  it  speak?  How  are  its 
words  recorded?  Do  they  order  the  doings  of  to-day  or  of  to-mor- 
row ?  Are  they,  once  uttered,  beyond  recall?  And  if  to  be  recalled, 
what  power  shall  do  it? 

The  history  of  science  calls  for  an  answer  to  these  questions,  — 
calls  for  it,  and  gives  it. 

The  people  of  a  race,  or  of  a  land,  are  in  the  foundation  of  things  its 
only  lawgiver.  At  first  they  speak  by  silence.  The  relations  with 
each  other  which  they  find  it  convenient  to  maintain,  defined  only 
by  the  usage  of  daily  life;  slowly  though  surely  changing  with  their 
growth  or  their  decay;  —  these  in  their  settled  order  each  genera- 
tion in  each  land,  without  caring  to  inquire  whether  they  come 
from  a  political  sovereign,  receives  as  its  unchallenged  birthright, 
its  royal  inheritance :  these  make  it  and  keep  it  a  nation. 

I  speak  of  substantive  law.  The  people  make  the  rules  for  their  own 
behavior.  They  are  content  that  courts,  when  courts  arise,  should 
regulate  theirs. 

This  law  is  for  long  ages  but  a  matter  of  oral  tradition.  The  priests 
may  declare  it.  The  priests  may  come  to  have  their  sacred  books  in 
which  it  may  be  or  may  be  said  to  be  enrolled.  But  they  are  not  for 
the  people  to  look  into.    It  is  not  until  education  passes  from  the 

'  George  H.  Smith,  A  Critical  History  of  Modem  English  Jurisprudence,  75. 


334  HISTORY  OF  COMMON  LAW 

priests,  everywhere  its  first  possessors,  to  become  the  possession  of 
the  community,  that  law  can  or  need  take  written  form. 

As  the  Northern  tribes  that  destroyed  the  Roman  Empire,  when 
they  learned  letters  from  those  whom  they  conquered,  set  up  their 
codes  by  the  side  of  the  Theodosian  and  the  Justinian,  so  with  every 
people  a  time  comes  when  unwritten  law  takes  written  form.  It  is  an 
evil  time  if  it  comes  too  quickly.  It  is  an  evil  change  if  it  is  pressed 
too  far. 

The  force  of  law  is  the  reverence  of  the  people.  Man  is  born  to 
reverence  for  his  elders  and  for  the  elder  time.  He  wastes  his  patri- 
mony if  he  does  not  cherish  with  this  sentiment  the  laws  and  institu- 
tions which  have  come  to  him  by  descent.  He  may  some  day  build 
better.  But  nothing  will  be  better  which  does  not  rest,  in  part,  and  in 
no  small  part,  on  the  old  foimdations. 

A  common  law  is  obeyed  by  the  mass  of  the  people  instinctively 
and  unquestioningly.  They  may  challenge  the  right  of  a  monarch  or 
a  legislative  assembly  to  impose  new  rules  upon  them.  They  may 
endeavor  to  elude  their  force,  or  even  resist  them.  But  as  Maine 
has  observed^  "the  actual  constraint  which  is  required  to  secure 
conformity  with  usage  is  inconceivably  small."  ^  We  follow  usage 
in  law,  as  we  do  in  dress,  without  asking  for  any  other  reason  than 
the  practice  of  our  neighbors. 

This  may  be  called  mere  prejudice,  but  popular  prejudices  are 
often  the  best  ally  of  justice.  England  has  grown  great  and  lasted 
long  because  she  trusts  them  so  much.  As  Burke  has  put  it  in  speak- 
ing for  his  countrymen:  "We  cherish  them  because  they  are  pre- 
judices; and  the  longer  they  have  lasted,  and  the  more  generally  they 
have  prevailed,  the  more  we  cherish  them.  We  are  afraid  to  put 
men  to  live  and  trade  each  on  his  own  private  stock  of  reason;  because 
we  suspect  that  this  stock  in  each  man  is  small,  and  that  the  individ- 
uals would  do  better  to  avail  themselves  of  the  general  bank  and 
capital  of  nations  and  of  ages."  ^ 

Japan  has  wisely  bowed  to  this  universal  rule  in  modeling  her  con- 
stitutional government.  It  had  been  the  basis  of  the  empire  that  it 
should  be  governed  by  a  line  of  emperors  unbroken  for  ages  eternal. 
They  made  no  such  pretense,  as  the  Romans  did,  that  the  people 
were  the  ultimate  source  of  authority,  but  had  committed  it  all  tc^ 
the  emperor  by  some  royal  law.'  They  received  their  constitution 
in  1889  as  his  free  though  irrevocable  gift.  Its  essential  character 
was,  by  his  will,  expressed  once  for  all  to  be  immutable,  but  minor 
modifications  he  could  suggest  from  time  to  time  to  the  Imperial 
Diet.^ 

*  Early  History  of  Institutions,  392. 

'  Reflections  on  the  Revolution  in  France,  Burke's  Works,  Bohn's  ed.  ii,  359. 
'  Dig.  I,  4,  De  Constitutionibus  Principium,  1 . 

*  Constitution  of  Japan,  arts,  i,  iv,  v,  vi,  Lxxni. 


HISTORY  OF   COMMON  LAW  335 

Customary  law,  even  though  it  may  come  to  be  embodied  in  a 
code,  has  no  quahty  of  permanence  until  it  has  become  the  law  of 
the  land.  That  of  the  Jews  has  shown  that  if  once  attached  to  a 
land,  it  may  survive  a  separation  from  it.  But  the  customs  and  codes 
of  the  dark  ages,  binding  only  a  part  of  the  persons  occupying  the 
soil,  were  in  their  nature  temporary  and  evanescent,  fit  only  for  the 
migratory  hordes  to  which  they  appertained. 

Each  particular  land  must  have  its  own  peculiar  law,  made  by  and 
for  its  own  peculiar  people,  and  when  it  takes  on  written  shape  it 
must  reflect  the  genius  of  this  people,  or  it  will  quickly  perish  from 
the  earth.  In  the  words  of  one  of  the  leaders  of  the  American  Bar, 
"the  work  of  declaring  or  making  law,  whether  committed  to  the 
hands  of  a  judge,  a  legislature,  or  a  codifier,  is  substantially  the 
same.  It  is  the  task  of  applying  the  national  standard  or  ideal  of 
justice  to  human  affairs."  ^ 

The  denial  of  this  was  one  of  the  great  defects  of  Bentham's 
philosophy  of  legislation.  He  belonged  to  a  race  which  had  little 
faith  in  large  generalizations  as  to  what  is  for  the  good  of  organized 
society,  and  was  content  to  settle  each  question  as  it  might  arise, 
crossing  no  bridges  until  it  came  to  them.  He  did  not  share  in  the 
prevailing  convictions  of  his  own  countrymen.  Of  those  of  Americans 
he  knew  still  less.  Yet  he  was  insensible  to  the  folly  of  his  formal 
offer  to  the  President  of  the  United  States  to  draw  up  a  complete 
code  of  laws  for  the  United  States  and  also  for  the  several  states, 
including,  as  he  wrote,  "  a  succedaneum  to  the  mass  of  foreign  law, 
the  yoke  of  which  in  the  wordless  as  well  as  boundless  and  shape- 
less shape  of  common,  alias  unwritten  law,  remains  still  about  your 
necks."  ^ 

A  country  may  or  may  not  find  it  expedient  to  ordain  or  to  ask 
for  a  written  constitution  of  political  government.  Social  conditions 
may  render  it  inexpedient.   Long  usage  may  supply  its  place. 

But  so  far  as  concerns  government  in  the  daily  affairs  of  private 
life  and  the  administration  of  justice  between  man  and  man  in  their 
relations  to  each  other,  a  written  code  will  everywhere,  in  time,  sup- 
plant the  common  law  on  certain,  and  these  the  greatest,  subjects, 
as  the  first  evidence  to  which  to  appeal  in  any  controversy  as  to  the 
rule  of  conduct  which  the  state  may  have  prescribed.  This  will  not  be 
because  the  code  has  replaced  the  common  law.  It  will  be  because 
it  has  expressed  the  common  law.  Its  proper  work  is  to  arrange 
rather  than  to  change,  and  where  there  have  been  local  differences, 
to  choose  between  them  and  take  the  ground  approved  by  the 
majority  of  the  people.  To  do  more  than  this,  in  any  matter  of  sub- 
stance, is  to  do  too  much.   It  is  to  disregard  the  inevitable  rule  that 

•  James  C.  Carter,  The  Proposed  Codification  of  our  Common  Law,  40. 
'  Bentham,  Papers  relative  to  Codification,  etc.,  1. 


336  HISTORY  OF  COMMON   LAW 

sustained  progress  can  come  only  by  the  slow,  lingering,  hesitating 
course  of  evolution. 

"  Non  turn  denique  incipit  lex  esse,  quum  scripta  est,  sed  turn  quum 
orta  est."  These  words  of  Cicero,^  used  with  reference  to  what  of 
law  is  in  its  nature  divine,  are  not  less  applicable  to  a  national 
common  law.  To  codify  it  is  not  to  create  it.  To  codify  it  is  not  or 
ought  not  to  be  to  give  up  the  aid  to  an  understanding  of  its  mean- 
ing furnished  by  judicial  decisions  of  former  times.  California 
was  the  first  American  state  to  adopt  a  civil  code,  but  her  courts,  in 
working  under  it,  have  always  resorted  freely  to  the  preceding  law 
out  of  which  it  grew.  It  was  indeed  urged  by  her  foremost  jurist, 
a  supporter  of  codification,  that  they  should  go  farther  and  as- 
sume as  a  kind  of  legal  fiction  that  the  preceding  law  covered  every 
case  that  could  arise,  and  that  the  code  was  designed  to  make  no 
changes  in  it  which  were  not  manifest  on  the  face  of  the  new  pro- 
visions.^ 

The  Romans  based  their  philosophy  of  law  on  a  false  foundation. 
They  assumed  a  golden  age  in  the  far  past  when  all  nations  were 
governed  by  the  same  great  rules.  Their  jus  gentium  was  of  all  myths 
the  most  misleading. 

To  view  the  normal  place  of  law  as  the  common  and  identical 
possession  of  every  people,  and  hope  for  world-uniformity  when  a 
golden  age  of  pristine  innocence  shall  return,  is  to  misconceive  the 
essential  nature  of  things.  All  progress  is  away  from  uniformity.  If 
history  has  taught  us  anything,  it  is,  to  use  the  terms  of  Spencer, 
that  there  is  "  an  ever  increasing  heterogeneity  in  the  governmental 
appliances  of  all  nations";  ^  that  all  "organic  progress  consists  in  a 
change  from  the  homogeneous  to  the  heterogeneous";  and  that  this 
"is  so,  because  each  change  is  followed  by  many  changes."  ' 

Not  only,  the  world  has  learned,  "is  all  progress  from  the  homo- 
geneous to  the  heterogeneous;  but  at  the  same  time  it  is  from  the 
indefinite  to  the  definite."  * 

So  will  the  uncollected  and  unclassified  wisdom  of  the  people,  which 
we  see  gradually  take  on  the  shape  of  their  common  law,  at  another 
stage  of  their  history  pass  from  the  unwritten  into  the  written,  and 
finally  crystallize  into  formal  codes.  But  they  will  be  national  codes 
and  nothing  more.  No  two  peoples  can  see  things  from  the  same 
viewpoint.  Nor  can  any  two  generations  of  the  same  people  see 
things  from  the  same  viewpoint. 

Constitutions,  if  drawn  as  constitutions  should  be,  may  be,  in 
theory  at  least,  immutable.  That  of  the  United  States,  so  difficult 
has  been  made  the  process  of  amendment,  and  so  happily  brief  is  it  in 

*  De  Legibus,  ii,  4,  10. 

'  James  C.  Carter,  The  Provinces  of  the  Written  and  the  Unioritten  Law,  24. 
'  Illustrations  of  Universal  Progress,  Appleton's  ed.,  3,  15,  57. 

*  lUd.  396. 


HISTORY  OF   COMMON  LAW  337 

terms,  has  never  been  changed  and  will  never  be  changed  except  by- 
reason  of  some  real  emergency. 

But  codes  of  private  law  must  draw  the  elements  of  growth  or  of 
decay  from  the  life  of  the  people  whom  they  serve.  It  has  been  said 
that  the  difference  between  the  Roman  and  the  modern  idea  of  the 
basis  and  fundamental  nature  of  law  is  that  between  fixity  and  move- 
ment, —  between  the  law  as  necessary,  and  the  law  as  always  subject 
to  revision.^  No  doubt  the  Romans  did  think  it  a  social  necessity  that 
there  should  be  some  form  of  institutional  authority,  the  expressed 
will  of  which  was  the  final  rule  of  social  action.  But  it  is  difficult  to 
maintain  that  they  accorded  any  special  fixity  to  its  expression.  As 
it  came  from  the  people  it  could  be  changed  by  the  people.  Long 
usage  if  extending  over  '^plurimos  annos"  added  new  laws,  "velut 
tacita  civium  conventio."  ^  It  gave,  and  it  took  away.  Even  legislat- 
ive statutes  were  frankly  declared  to  be  subject  to  tacit  abrogation 
by  sinking  into  desuetude.^ 

No  attempt  to  transmute  the  common  law  of  a  people  into  code 
form  can  be  worthily  made  which  fails  to  discriminate  between  what 
of  its  provisions  are  in  their  nature  permanent  and  general,  and  what 
of  them  were  the  product  of  temporary  and  local  circumstances. 
Those  of  the  latter  kind  may  have  been  preserved  in  force  through 
centuries,  and  nevertheless  they  may  be  essentially  unjust  and  of  the 
nature  of  class  legislation  in  opposition  to  the  public  welfare. 

Customary  law,  therefore,  cannot  be  reduced  to  a  written  form 
which  shall  have  the  elements  of  perpetuity  unless  those  who  under- 
take the  task  have  the  true  interests  of  the  people  at  heart.  They 
must  be  able  so  far  to  dissociate  themselves  from  the  influence  of 
present  conditions  as  to  look  at  things  from  a  far  standpoint.  They 
must  be  uncontrolled  by  motives  of  a  selfish  character,  personal  to 
themselves.  I  do  not  speak  of  those  who  put  results  in  words  or  are 
the  ones  whose  names  may  authenticate  charters  or  codes.  Magna 
Charta  was  not  the  work  of  the  king  who  gave  it.  It  would  not  have 
formed  the  enduring  corner-stone  of  English  and  American  liberty 
had  the  barons  who  wrung  it  from  him  exacted  only  what  benefited 
themselves. 

Had  France,  before  the  days  of  1789,  made  full  codes  for  those  of 
her  provinces  which  were  subject  to  unwritten  law,  she  would  have 
perpetuated  so  much  that  ought  never  to  have  existed,  and  shown  so 
plainly  to  all  the  burdens  unfairly  thrown  upon  a  part,  that  the 
Revolution  would  have  come  all  too  soon. 

The  terni  commune  jus  was  used  at  the  close  of  the  fourth  century 
of  our  era  as  if  it  were  a  familiar  one  to  denote,  apparently,  rules  and 

*  A.  H.  Llovd,  in  Am.  Hist.  Review,  ix,  775. 

*  Dig.  I,  .3,  De  Legibus,  Senatusque  ConsuUis  et  Loruja  Consuetudine,  35. 

*  Ibid.  32,  §  1.  Aulua  Gellius,  Noctes  Atticae,  xii,  13. 


338  HISTORY  OF   COMMON   LAW 

laws  which  were  common  to  all  the  inhabitants  of  a  country,  irre- 
spective of  their  particular  nationality.^  Subsequently  the  canonists 
employed  it,  and  also  lex  communis,  to  denote  those  rules  of  the 
church  universal  which  were  generally  in  force,  as  distinguished 
from  special  privileges  given  by  popes,  or  local  rules  and  customs 
of  a  particular  church  or  ecclesiastical  establishment.^ 

During  the  Dark  Ages  the  term  lex  communis  is  found  in  the  Frank- 
ish  codes.  The  first  instance  of  which  I  am  aware  dates  back  to  about 
the  beginning  of  the  ninth  century. 

Charlemagne  had  made  laws,  as  king  of  both  Franks  and  Lombards, 
most  of  which  bound  his  subjects  of  all  nationalities.'  Pepin,  not  long 
afterwards,  in  his  statutes  as  King  of  Italy,  after  providing  on  certain 
subjects  different  rules  for  Romans  and  Lombards,  declared  that 
"  De  ceteris  vero  causis  communi  lege  vivant,  quam  Dominus  Karolus, 
excellentissimu^  Rex  Francorum  atque  Langobardorum  in  edictum  ad- 
junxit."  *  The  term  was  used  in  the  same  sense  by  one  of  the  older 
English  writers,  who  referring  to  the  unification  of  the  laws  of  Eng- 
land by  Edward  the  Confessor,  in  the  eleventh  century,  to  replace  the 
different  laws  of  the  Angles,  Danes,  and  Mercians,  says:  "Ex  trihus 
his  legihus  S.  Edwardus  tertius  {ante  conquestum)  unam  legem  com- 
munam  edidit."  ^ 

While,  therefore,  the  thought  which  is  expressed  in  the  modern 
mind  by  "common  law"  is  that  of  universahty,  and  territoriality, 
as  the  law  of  the  land,*  originally  it  was  rather  that  of  the  general 
law  of  the  church  universal,  or  of  a  personal  law  common  to  several 
peoples  subject  to  the  same  sovereign. 

What  force  attaches  to  such  a  common  law  of  the  land? 

Rome,  in  the  later  stages  of  her  institutional  development,  made 
this  depend  largely  on  whether  it  had  acquired  some  kind  of  govern- 
mental sanction.  When,  said  Ulpian,  one  relies  on  a  custom  of  a  city 
or  a  province,  the  first  thing  to  be  done  is  to  ask  if  it  has  ever  been 
confirmed  by  some  judgment  in  a  contested  lawsuit.^  Romans  loved 
form  and  formal  expression.  A  judgment  gave  this,  although  not  as 
fully  as  an  act  of  legislation. 

France,  from  an  early  period,  required  legislative  approval.  Her 
common  law,  it  may  be  said,  as  respects  the  French  provinces  subject 
to  the  droit  non  ecrit,  differed  radically  from  that  of  England  in  two 
points.    It  was  not  fully  recognized  by  the  courts  until  it  had  been 

*  Cod.  Theodos.,  ii,  1,  De  Jurisdictione  et  ubi  quis  Conveniri  Debeat,  10;  xiv, 
V,  de  Haereticis,  23. 

'  Pollock  &  Maitland,  History  of  the  Law  of  the  English  People,  i,  115,  176. 
'  Some  were  confined  to  the  Lombards.    See  Heinneccius,  Corpus  Juris  Ger- 
manici,  1153,  1166. 

*  Ibid.  1188. 

*  Spellman,  Glossary,  Lex. 

'  Hale,  History  of  the  Common  Law,  chap.  3,  p.  55. 

'  Dig.  I.  3,  De  Legihus,  Sencdusque  ConsuUis  et  Longa  Consuetudine,  34. 


HISTORY   OF  COMMON  LAW  339 

reduced  to  writing  and  officially  promulgated  by  the  government, 
and  it  was  not  subject  to  extension  by  analogy  through  mere  judicial 
construction.^ 

If  there  was  a  point  as  to  which  custom  had  provided  no  rule,  but 
the  Roman  law  did,  the  judges,  from  the  time  when  the  Corpus  Juris 
Civilis  first  appeared,  could  resort  to  it,  but  only  because  it  was  a  high 
form  of  written  reason.  ^ 

After  the  adoption  of  the  Code  Napoleon  they  were  given  a  freer 
hand.  In  framing  the  decrees  by  which  it  was  to  be  promulgated,  the 
Council  of  State  considered  this  question  at  length.  It  was  urged  that 
no  civil  code  could  provide  for  every  conjunction  of  circumstances 
and  that  the  ancient  local  laws  should  remain  in  force  as  to  matters 
not  otherwise  expressly  regulated. 

No,  replied  M.  Bigot-Preameneu.  This  would  perpetuate  the  con- 
fusion which  we  seek  to  end.  We  should  have  judgments  of  the  Court 
of  Cassation  affirming  one  rule,  in  a  case  coming  from  a  province 
formerly  under  the  droit  ecrit,  and  a  contrary  rule  in  a  case  coming 
from  a  province  formerly  under  the  droit  non  ecrit.  The  Roman  law 
will  always  and  everywhere  have  the  authority  of  written  reason,  but 
its  use  will  be  all  the  greater  if  we  can  resort  to  its  equitable  maxims 
without  being  hampered  by  every  subtlety  and  error  which  may  have 
attached  itself  to  them. 

These  views  prevailed  and  the  Council  agreed  that  while  an  infrac- 
tion of  the  previous  law  should  not  necessarily  constitute  a  ground 
of  legal  error,  judges  might,  if  they  thought  proper,  take  the  prin- 
ciples of  that  Jaw  as  a  guide  in  the  determination  of  causes.^ 

The  name  common  law  {droit  commun)  in  France,  it  may  be  ob- 
served, has  a  somewhat  different  signification  from  that  which 
attaches  to  it  in  most  countries.  It  is  used  as  importing  the  law,  what- 
ever may  be  its  character,  common  to  a  whole  people  or  a  land,  as 
distinguished  from  a  law  of  partial  application,  and  also  the  law 
recognized  by  all  peoples  in  all  lands  —  the  jus  gentium  of  the 
Romans.* 

Austin,  to  maintain  his  theory  that  law  is  a  mere  act  of  force 
proceeding  from  the  sovereignty  of  the  state,  expressive  of  its  will, 
and  to  be  obeyed  because  of  its  superior  power,  has  found  it  necessary 
to  assert  that  custom,  however  ancient,  never  becomes  law  until  the 
judges,  acting  for  the  government,  in  the  decision  of  some  case, 
have  declared  it  to  be  such.^ 

As  has  been  seen,  there  is  some  Roman  authority  for  this  position, 

1  Merlin,  Repertoire  de  Jurisprudence,  Autorites,  ii,  Coutume,  n. 
'  Merlin,  Repertoire  de  Jurisprudence,  Autorites,  n,  Coutume,  in;  Montesquieu, 
De  I'esprit  des  Lois,  liv.  xxviii,  chap.  xii. 

*  Merlin,  Repertoire  de  Jurisprudence,  Raison  ecrite. 

*  Merlin,  Repertoire  de  Jurisprudence,  Droit:  Ortolan,  Diplomatie  de  la  Mer, 
4th  ed.,  455,  456. 

*  Lectures  on  Jurisprudence,  i,  104;  ii,  537,  558,  581. 


340  HISTORY  OF  COMMON   LAW 

though  quite  as  much  against  it.  It  is,  however,  not  easy  to  under- 
stand how  Austin's  general  views  have  been  received  with  so  much 
favor  by  EngUsh  jurists.  He  refuses  to  see  that  the  soul  of  law  is  not 
force,  but  right.  He  roundly  asserts  that  "  in  truth,  law  is  itself  the 
standard  of  justice,"  though  admitting  that  it  is  a  standard  subject 
to  correction  by  some  higher  standard,  if  there  be  such,  set  up  by  the 
sovereign  elsewhere.  ^ 

Law  in  human  society  is  made  for  men.  It  is  made  for  beings  having 
—  considered  as  a  mass  —  certain  general  notions  of  moral  justice. 
These  notions  are  the  unwritten  constitutions,  no  positive  law 
violating  which  can  long  endure. 

The  same  thing  is  true  of  custom  and  of  judicial  decisions  support- 
ing custom.  If  they  are  contrary  to  moral  justice,  the  day  will  come 
when  they  will  be  abrogated,  if  neither  by  legislation  nor  by  disuse, 
then  by  the  courts  themselves. 

That  customs  may  have  received  judicial  sanction  is  but  uncertain 
evidence  that  they  deserved  it.   Bentham,  not  wholly  without  cause, 
said  of  the  English  common  law  that  it  based  men's  dearest  interests 
"on  some  random  decision,  or  string  of  frequently  contradictory 
decisions,  pronounced  in  this  or  that  barbarous  age,  almost  always 
without  any  intelligible  reason,  under  the  impulse  of  some  private  and 
sinister  interest,  perceptible  or  not  perceptible,  without  thought  or 
possibility  of  thought,  of  any  such  circumstances  or  exigencies,  as 
tfiose  of  the  people,  by  whom  the  country  here  in  question  is  inhab- 
ited at  the  present  time:  pronounced  by  men,  who,  if  disposition  and 
inclination  depend  in  any  degree  on  private  interest,  w^re  as  far  from 
being  willing,  as  from  being,  in  respect  of  intelligence,  able,  to  render 
their  decisions  conformable  to  the  interests,  even  of  the  people  by 
whose  disputes  those  decisions  were  called  for,  and  whose  situation 
alone  it  was  possible  that,  in  the  framing  of  those  decisions,  they 
should  have  in  view:  —  even  of  the  people  of  those  several  past  ages, 
—  not  to  speak  of  those  of  the  present  age,  or  of  ages  yet  to  come."  * 
If  antiquated   morality   and   antiquated   law  do   not  disappear 
together,  one  does  not  long  survive  the  other.     As  Sir  Frederick 
Pollock  has  remarked,  "Legal  justice  aims  at  realizing  moral  justice 
within  its  range,  and  its  strength  largely  consists  in  the  general  feeling 
that  this  is  so.     Were  the  legal  formulation  of  right  permanently 
estranged  from  the  moral  judgment  of  good  citizens,  the  state  would 
be  divided  against  itself."  ^ 

No  people  can  adhere  to  a  common  law  which  is  not  in  the  habit 
of  bowing  to  judicial  precedent.  And  on  the  other  hand,  no  people 
can  adhere  to  a  code  without  putting  it  above  the  reach  of  inter- 
pretation by  precedent.   Interpreted  it  often  must  be,  but  the  courts 

1   Lectures  on  Jurisprudence,  i,  223. 

'  Papers  on  Codification,  14,  31.  '  First  Book  of  Jurisprudence,  31. 


HISTORY  OF   COMMON  LAW  341 

must  be  free  in  each  case  as  it  arises  to  interpret  it  each  for  itself.  A 
distinguished  lawyer  of  wide  experience  in  a  line  of  practice  requiring 
considerable  familiarity  with  the  laws  of  France,  at  a  public  hearing 
in  1881,  before  a  legislative  committee  in  New  York,  said  of  the 
Code  Napoleon,  that  he  would  undertake,  if  the  meaning  of  anj- 
important  sections  of  it  were  questioned,  to  furnish  decisions  on  both 
sides,  and  one  as  authoritative  as  another,  since  the  rulings  of  the 
Court  of  Cassation  bound  no  inferior  tribunal. 

As  Sir  Henry  Maine  has  pointed  out,  with  his  accustomed  precision 
of  statement,  one  of  the  material  differences  between  the  legal  systems 
of  England  and  America  and  those  of  other  countries  is  that  the 
English  common  law  is  content  with  no  conclusions  from  imaginary 
facts.  ^  It  demands  to  know  what  has  been  adjudged  to  be  the  law  on 
established  facts.  Anything  short  of  this  is  an  illustration,  not  a  rule. 

A  legislative  fiat  rests  on  an  imaginary  state  of  things.  A  judicial 
precedent  rests  on  an  actual  state  of  things. 

The  actual  state  of  things  in  any  controversy  between  man  and 
man  may  so  far  differ  from  any  state  of  things  previously  known  that 
no  rule  of  law  can  be  found  which  exactly  applies  to  it.  In  such  case, 
the  courts  make  use  of  the  old  rules  as  far  as  they  can.  This  gives 
a  twist,  perhaps,  to  the  old  rules,  which  thereafter  are  bent  in  a  new 
direction.  To  quote  from  the  author  cited,  "  Almost  everybody  can 
observe  that,  when  new  circumstances  arise,  we  use  our  old  ideas  to 
bring  them  home  to  us;  it  is  only  afterwards,  and  sometimes  long 
afterwards,  that  our  ideas  are  found  to  have  changed.  An  English 
court  of  justice  is  in  great  part  an  engine  for  working  out  this  process. 
New  combinations  of  circumstances  are  constantly  arising,  but  in  the 
first  instance  they  are  exclusively  interpreted  according  to  old 
legal  ideas.  A  little  later  lawyers  admit  that  the  old  ideas  are  not 
quite  what  they  were  before  the  new  circumstances  arose."  ^ 

This  change,  such  as  it  is,  will  naturally  be  in  the  direction  of  con- 
formity to  the  national  standards  of  justice  and  civil  policy  existing 
at  the  time  of  the  decision.  The  judge  cannot  shut  his  eyes  to  the  his 
tory  and  spirit  of  the  day  and  time  in  which  and  for  which  he  speaks. 

The  history  of  the  Anglo-American  common  law  is  very  far  from 
being  a  mere  history  of  judicial  precedent.  It  is  rather  a  history  of 
public  custom.  No  collection  of  precedents  could  ever  be  answerable 
to  the  wants  of  a  civilized  community.  The  only  collection  to  satisfy 
them  must  be  one  of  the  principles  of  justice  and  incidents  of  history 
from  which  those  precedents  were  derived.  It  was  justly  said,  in 
1836,  in  its  report  to  the  legislature  of  Massachusetts  by  the  very- 
able  commission  which  had  been  appointed  to  consider  the  subject 
of  codification,  that  "  of  the  innumerable  questions,  which  arise  in 

'  Early  History  of  Institutions,  47. 

^  Ihid.  229.  3  gee  Holmes,  The  Common  Law,  35. 


342  HISTORY  OF   COMMON   LAW 

any  one  age,  and  admit  of  forensic  controversy  and  doubt,  probably 
not  one  in  a  hundred,  perhaps  it  would  be  more  correct  to  say  not 
one  in  a  thousand,  ever  comes  before  a  court  of  justice  to  be  there 
finally  settled  by  adjudication." 

If  a  disputed  question  of  private  right  is  submitted  to  counsel  to 
be  determined  by  the  rules  of  common  law  (and  I  mean  the  common 
law  supplemented,  as  it  always  is  and  must  be  in  a  civilized  people, 
by  the  rules  of  equity),  he  considers  first  whether  there  is  any  one 
of  them  which  obviously  and  directly  applies  to  it.  If  not,  he  asks 
if  there  be  not  one  which  by  analogy  governs.  If  there  be  none  such, 
he  looks  to  the  fundamental  principles  of  natural  justice,  and  there 
he  cannot  fail,  or  if  he  does  it  is  because  he  fails  in  his  selection.  The 
principles  are  established  and  they  are  decisive.  Uhi  jus,  ibi  remedium. 

The  common  law  of  a  people  will  develop  on  two  lines,  that  of 
their  relation  to  the  state,  and  that  of  their  relation  to  each  other. 

The  former  naturally  comes  first.  In  its  infancy  a  nation  gropes 
after  large  things  only.  It  thinks,  when  it  begins  to  think,  in  poetry. 
It  is  ready  to  idealize  whatever  is  the  representative  of  sovereign 
power.  Then,  if' it  finds  his  hand  too  heavy,  it  seeks  for  charters  and 
guaranties.  These,  for  a  people  that  is  strong  and  feels  its  power,  are 
the  conditions  of  its  support.  They  proceed  from  what  already  has 
begun  to  be  a  custom,  and  new  customs  are  built  upon  their  founda- 
tions.  It  is  simply  adherence  to  law  and  to  the  man  who  personifies  it. 

The  historj"^  of  civil  liberty  is  the  first  and  best  part  of  the  history 
of  common  law.    But  it  is  a  short  chapter. 

Liberty  soon  asks  for  itself  recognition  in  some  written  document 
to  which  man  can  appeal  in  time  of  public  stress  and  conflict. 

On  the  other  hand,  no  written  document,  under  any  conditions 
of  human  society  yet  developed,  can  adequately  provide  for  every 
future  conflict  of  private  interests. 

There  is  a  field  for  the  professed  law-makers,  be  they  king  or  repre- 
sentative assembly,  and  there  is  a  field  for  the  unprofessed  law- 
makers, the  people. 

Legislative  power  in  early  days  seems  to  have  been  mainly  exerted 
to  serve  the  purpose  of  authentication.  It  was  not  looked  to  for 
innovation,  but  for  preservation.*  The  legislative  hall  was  a  record- 
ing office. 

And  it  must  still  be  regarded  as  the  great  function  of  a  legislature 
to  regulate  the  dealings  of  the  state  with  individuals  and  with  other 
states.  When  it  passes  beyond  this  and  seeks  to  regulate  details 
of  conduct  between  man  and  man,  it  enters  upon  dangerous  ground. 
It  is  making  law  for  those  who  can  generally  make  it  better,  have 
generally  made  it  better,  for  themselves. 

Legislation  as  to  succession  to  the  estates  of  the  dead  is  justified 
.  *  See  Maine,  Early  History  of  InstUutions,  26. 


HISTORY  OF  COMMON  LAW  343 

because  they  belong  of  right  to  nobody.  When  the  hand  that  gath- 
ered or  preserved  fell  lifeless,  it  was  for  the  state  to  send  what  no 
longer  was  in  the  rightful  grasp  of  any  where  it  would. 

Judicial  procedure  also  is  a  matter  proper  for  legislation.  It  is  the 
means  by  which  the  power  of  the  state  is  exerted  to  preserve  the 
order  of  the  state  and  the  rights  of  its  inhabitants. 

But  these  rights,  unless  they  rest  on  something  better  than  statutes, 
are  on  no  assured  foundation.  Rights  are  inviolate.  Statutes  may 
be  passed  to-day  and  repealed  to-morrow. 

Rights  also,  founded  on  a  common  law,  contain  a  principle  of 
growth.  They  may  increase,  though,  so  far  as  they  are  founded  on  the 
principle  of  equality  of  opportunity,  they  can  never  be  permanently 
diminished. 

To  define  them  in  statutory  words  is  to  circumscribe  them.  It  tends 
to  prolong  inequalities  of  condition.  The  freer,  therefore,  a  people 
may  be,  the  longer  they  will  be  apt  to  cling  to  unwritten  law. 

There  is,  however,  one  tendency  of  modern  times  which  occasion- 
ally exerts  great  force  in  an  opposite  direction.  It  is  that  towards  the 
aggregation  of  nationalities,  to  the  strength  that  comes  from  union. 
In  the  course  of  such  great  movements  the  maintenance  and  de- 
velopment of  a  national  common  law  may  be  checked  by  codification 
proceeding  from  reasons  of  political  policy.  The  Gesetzbuch  of  Fred- 
erick the  Great  was  an  early  example  of  this.  The  German  Imperial 
Civil  Code  of  1900  is  in  large  part  due  to  the  same  cause.  It  helps 
to  unify  a  new  empire.  Those  who  framed  it,  however,  did  not  under- 
rate the  inevitable  reluctance  of  the  particular  states  to  yield  more 
than  could  justly  be  claimed  as  necessary.  The  "  law  of  introduction  " 
is  so  full  of  exceptions  in  their  favor  that  more  almost  seems  to  be 
reserved  than  is  taken  away.* 

None  of  the  early  codes  or  collections  of  common  law  are  codes  in 
the  modem  sense. 

When  the  first  beginnings  are  made  toward  stating  it  in  an  author- 
itative shape,  it  is  put  forward  as  a  mere  bundle  of  propositions, 
reached  apparently  by  no  scientific  process,  and  arranged  certainly 
in  ro  scientific  way.  It  will  be  full  as  to  some  points;  meagre  or 
silent  as  to  the  rest.  So  far  as  it  has  arrangement  or  order,  it  may 
be  that  of  bare  chronology.  To  learn  what  it  is,  we  must  look  to  the 
history  of  the  people,  and  trace  its  halting  and  devious  steps  from 
this  level  to  that,  now  ascending  and  now  perhaps  sinking  to  a  point 
from  which  it  can  never  rise.  These  things  once  known,  we  can 
begin  to  construct  a  philosophy  to  state  their  ultimate  results.  As 
in  everything  else,  to  quote  the  words  of  Froude,  "  we  must  have  the 
real  thing,  before  we  can  have  a  science  of  a  thing,"  ' 

»  See  Sec.  1,  Art.  3,  and  Sec.  3. 

2  Thomas  Carlyle,  Life  in  London,  ii,  126. 


344  HISTORY   OF   COMMON   LAW 

And  yet  what  is  more  scientific  than  the  theory  and  practice  of 
the  law  of  evolution?  In  that  this  has  been  followed,  the  history  of 
the  common  law  shows  that  its  advance  has  been  scientific.  It  has 
been  thoroughly  unscientific  in  this,  that  it  has  never  been  system- 
atically arranged  and  set  in  order.  Governments  and  peoples  have 
not  stopped  to  analyze  their  common  law.  They  have  practiced  it 
rather  than  studied  it. 

Science  has,  strictly  speaking,  nothing  to  do  with  productive 
application.  It  inquires  for  the  sake  of  knowledge.  Science  teaches 
man  to  know:  art  teaches  him  to  act.  Art  leans  on  science;  but 
science  is  independent  of  art. 

Our  business  in  this  Congress  of  Arts  and  Science  is,  I  take  it,  to 
look  at  a  lawyer's  art  so  far  only  as  it  gathers  strength  and  form 
from  science,  and  finds  its  guide  in  jurisprudence. 

But  while  jurisprudence  is  independent  of  the  art  of  legal  practice, 
there  are  other  arts  of  which  she  is  not  independent,  and  from  which 
she  derives  nourishment  and  support. 

History  is  a  tale  that  is  told.  It  is  an  art  to  tell  it  well.  Science 
may  supply  the  master-keys  to  unlock  its  secret  places,  but  what  she 
discovers  is  fruitless  unless  so  stated  and  illustrated  as  to  catch  the 
ear  and  strike  the  mind. 

Law  precedes  letters,  but  the  history  of  literature  as  well  as  of  lan- 
guage must  be  far  advanced  before  that  of  law  can  be  really  begun. 

One  does  not  rise  from  the  study  of  the  first  book  of  the  Pandects, 
which  takes  up  the  origin  of  Roman  law,  with  the  feeling  that  any 
full  and  comprehensive  treatment  of  the  subject  has  been  given. 
The  main  facts  are  there,  but  they  are  cold  and  lifeless.  This  is  not 
simply  because  the  Pandects  are  an  array  of  disjecta  membra,  into 
which  no  one  human  being  has  breathed  the  breath  of  life  —  of 
his  life.  It  is  because  the  Roman  jurists  had  not  learned  the  art 
of  historical  composition  as  applied  to  explaining  the  development  of 
legal  conceptions.  There  was  no  Grotius,  no  Savigny,  no  Maine,  to 
detect  the  minor  forces  of  jurisprudence  and  marshal  them  in  line. 

The  literary  style  and  spirit  of  men  like  these  is  hardly  less  import- 
ant than  their  knowledge  of  the  subjects  of  which  they  treat.  It  is 
the  artist  only  who  can  portray  with  that  sense  of  proportion  and 
symmetry  so  essential  to  one  who  would  set  any  system  of  things 
before  other  men  in  a  way  to  be  felt  and  remembered. 

The  historian  of  the  common  law  of  any  land  must  be  artist  and 
lawyer,  both. 

A  lawyer  only  can  differentiate  the  legal  from  the  social  currents 
in  the  life  of  a  nation.  A  scholarly  antiquary  —  a  Bishop  Stubbs  — 
may  be  more  competent  to  explore  the  sources,  and  set  out  materials 
for  the  work.  But  the  task  of  discriminating  and  rearranging  can  only 
be  done  satisfactorily  by  one  who  is  by  long  practice  familiar  Avith 


HISTORY  OF   COMMON  LAW  345 

the  law  of  hi^  own  land  in  his  own  day.  He  knows  best  how  to  choose 
between  authorities  and  reason  backwards  from  new  to  old.  As 
Lord  Bacon  has  put  it:  "  Exempla,  quae  ad  leges  spectant  non  placet 
ah  historids  peti,  sed  ab  actis  puhlicis  et  traditionihus  diligentioribus. 
Versatur  enim  infelicitas  quaedam  inter  historicos  vel  optimos,  ut  leg- 
ibus  et  actis  judicialibus  non  satis  immorentur."  ^ 

The  history  of  the  common  law  is  continuously  connected,  by  the 
necessities  of  judicial  procedure  and  through  the  interpretation  of 
statutes  and  contracts,  with  that  of  the  physical  sciences. 

Rights  are  worthless  unless  there  are  courts  to  protect  them. 
Courts  proceed  by  rule.  One  rule  of  common  use  is  that  judges  take 
notice,  without  proof,  of  whatever  so  belongs  to  universal  know- 
ledge that  it  may  fairly  be  assumed  to  be  familiar  to  all.  This  doc- 
trine, styled  by  English  law  "  judicial  notice,"  puts  at  the  service 
of  courts  of  common  law,  without  proof,  all  that  human  science  has 
established  beyond  a  question.  It  does  not,  indeed,  ask  how  — 
through  what  scientific  processes  —  results  have  been  attained. 
It  accepts  them  on  faith.  But  it  uses  them  in  a  scientific  way,  for 
scientific  purposes. 

The  Supreme  Court  of  the  United  States  was  called  upon  some 
years  ago  to  determine  whether  a  patent  for  a  certain  invention 
could  be  sustained.  It  was  for  a  method  of  preserving  meat  in  a 
receptacle  inclosed  by  a  refrigerating  chamber.  Was  this  a  new  de- 
vice? If  not,  the  patent  had  been  erroneously  granted.  The  judges, 
without  proof,  decided  that  it  was  simply  an  application  to  a  new 
purpose  of  the  principle  of  the  common  ice-cream  freezer.^ 

A  statute  contains  a  term  of  art  or  is  based  on  a  scientific  theory. 
It  is  then  for  the  courts  to  interpret  and  apply  these  on  the  principles 
of  the  common  law. 

A  few  years  since  an  American  legislature  enacted  that  a  certain 
public  officer  should  inspect  all  peach-orchards,  and  if  he  found  any 
trees  affected  by  the  disease  known  as  the  "  yellows  "  should  destroy 
them.  Was  this  or  was  it  not  to  give  to  one  man  arbitrary  authority 
over  another's  property?  It  was,  unless  the  science  of  agriculture 
had  established  the  danger  of  infection  from  trees  seized  by  that 
disease,  and  the  history  of  agricultural  science  thus  became  the 
handmaid  of  the  law.^ 

So  contract  rights  expand  with  the  expansion  of  physical  science. 

An  owner  of  a  colliery  in  England  in  the  seventeenth  century 
acquired  a  grant  of  a  right  of  way  to  haul  his  coal  across  the  land  of 
another  to  the  highway.  Two  centuries  later  came  the  invention  of 
the  steam  railway.   He  built  one,  and  the  courts  supported  his  right 

'  De  Augmentis  Scientiarum,  viii,  in,  Aphorismtcs,  xxix. 

*  Brown  v.  Piper,  91  U.  S.  Reports,  37. 

2  State  V.  Main,  69  Connecticut  Reports,  123,  136. 


346  HISTORY   OF  COMMON   LAW 

to  use  the  privilege,  granted  so  long  before,  in  this  new  way.  General 
words  were  to  be  interpreted  in  view  of  what,  for  the  time  being,  in  any 
age,  under  then  existing  scientific  conditions  and  possibilities,  was 
reasonably  necessary  to  give  them  full  effect.^ 

It  is  probable  that  in  following  the  course  of  national  common  law 
too  much  stress  has  been  laid  in  the  past  on  climatic  conditions. 
Montesquieu,  for  example,  attributes  to  the  moderate  temperature 
of  Japan  what  was  in  his  time  the  severity  of  its  criminal  law.^  A 
simpler  reason  may  be  found  in  the  military  character  impressed 
upon  it  by  feudal  institutions,  and  in  the  prevailing  want  of  educa- 
tion there  in  the  eighteenth  century. 

The  growth  of  a  common  law  has  been  well  illustrated  by  judicial 
extensions  of  the  rules  of  evidence. 

That  of  England  shut  out  testimony  not  given  under  oath  by  one 
who  believed  in  the  authority  of  the  Bible.  But  when  Englishmen 
gained  power  in  India  and  abused  it,  English  judges  allowed  the 
natives  who  might  ask  for  redress  at  law  to  verify  their  story  by 
touching  the  foot  of  a  Gentoo  priest.' 

That  of  England,  again,  shut  out  what  the  courts  called  hearsay. 
If  a  fact  was  to  be  proved,  let  the  man  who  saw  or  heard  be  pro- 
duced, and  not  some  one  to  whom  he  had  told  it,  or  some  paper  on 
which  he  had  wTitten  it  down.  A  suit  was  brought  in  an  American 
court  against  the  endorser  of  a  note.  It  was  vital  to  prove  that  a 
demand  for  payment  had  been  made  upon  the  maker.  As  evidence  of 
this  an  entry  by  a  notary  public  in  his  books  was  offered.  The  notary 
was  dead.  Were  he  alive,  it  was  certain  that  his  testimony  would 
have  been  indispensable.  Did  his  death  give  a  new  force  to  the 
entry  which  he  had  made?  The  courts  admitted  the  evidence,  and 
the  ancient  rule  that  none  could  be  admitted  that  was  not  the  best 
of  which  the  nature  of  the  thing  was  capable  was  thus  so  modified 
in  practice  as  to  amount  to  this:  that  if  the  best  evidence  which 
the  party  can  command  is  offered,  it  should  be  received,  if  it  be  in 
a  fair  degree  probative  in  its  natural  effect.* 

Codification  of  anything  more  than  certain  parts  of  the  common 
law  has  been  looked  upon  with  general  disfavor  by  Englishmen  and 
Americans. 

They  fear  that  more  would  be  lost  than  gained.  In  the  United 
States  it  is  felt  that  codification  would  be  closely  followed  by  pro- 
positions of  amendments  and  additions,  and  that  their  legislatures 
too  often  act  hastily  and  without  deliberate  consideration. 

Americans  have  also  still  stronger  reasons,  personal  to  themselves. 

'  Dand  v.  Kingscote,  6  Meeson  and  Welsby's  Reports,  197. 
^  De  I'Esprit  des  Lois,  liv.  xiv,  chap.  xv. 
'  Omychund  v.  Barker,  Willes  Reports,  550. 

*  Nicholls  V.  Webb,  8  Wheaton's  Reports,  326;  Thayer,  Preliminary  Treatise  on 
Evidence  at  the  Common  Law,  507;  Plumb  v.  Curtis,  66  Conn.  154,  166. 


HISTORY  OF  COMMON  LAW  347 

An  unwritten  common  law  now  exists  in  most  of  the  states,  which  is 
substantially  the  same.  For  any  of  them  to  codify  it  is  to  invite  the 
establishment  of  local  differences.  A  common  law  is  of  the  highest 
political  importance  to  those  who  have  a  common  country. 

But  more  than  this,  it  goes  naturally  with  a  rigid  constitution  of 
political  government.  Law  clothes  a  people  like  a  garment,  and  as 
they  wax  or  wane  in  power  or  wealth  and  diversity  of  interests,  so 
must  it  accommodate  itself  in  some  measure  to  their  changing  form. 
A  written  constitution  may  be  expanded  by  construction,  but  only 
within  narrow  limits  and  under  unusual  stress  of  circumstance.  The 
law  which  is  administered  under  it  must  therefore  be  the  more 
readily  capable  of  extension  to  the  varying  conditions  of  the  times. 
This  under  a  common  law  is  attained  with  ease;  under  a  code  with 
difficulty  and  delay.  Under  a  common  law  it  comes  from  the  people 
and  the  courts  who  are  always  at  work.  Under  a  code,  primarily 
from  a  legislature,  slow  moving  if  it  does  its  office  well,  and  seldom 
in  session :  from  the  people  not  at  all ;  from  the  courts  with  a  timid 
and  hesitating  hand. 

Looking  more  broadly  at  the  relations  of  a  common  law  to  political 
organization,  no  treatment  of  the  subject  under  consideration  would 
be  adequate  which  did  not  look  beyond  the  circumstances  and 
necessities  of  any  one  nation  on  the  earth  to  those  of  all. 

England  and  America  recognize  public  international  law  as  a  part 
of  their  common  law.  The  constitution  of  the  United  States  refers 
to  it  as  a  form  of  law  of  acknowledged  authority.^  So  far  as  their 
courts  recognize  any  principles  of  private  international  law,  these  also 
become  a  part  of  their  common  law. 

While  it  may  have  been  less  explicitly  announced  in  the  constitu- 
tional or  judicial  documents  of  other  countries,  the  world  is  coming 
to  the  same  position;  and  where  no  statute  lays  down  a  different 
rule,  the  people  can  rely  on  the  protection  which  the  law  of  nations 
and  the  comity  of  nations  extend  to  all  whose  acts  are  called  in 
question  in  a  court  of  justice. 

There  is,  then,  besides  the  common  law  for  regulating  the  dealings 
of  individuals,  or  between  individuals  and  the  state,  a  law  for  regu- 
lating the  dealings  of  nations  and  of  one  nation  with  the  citizens  of 
another.  Here,  indeed,  we  come  back  in  principle  to  the  jus  gentium 
of  the  Romans,  in  so  far  as  it  professes  to  speak  what  all  nations 
admit  to  be  just  and  true  —  all  nations,  for  we  no  longer  have  a 
Christendom  on  one  side,  and  only  barbarians  on  the  other. 

As  the  common  law  of  and  for  a  particular  people  is  made  by  that 
people  from  day  to  day  as  a  natural  growth  of  social  life,  so  the 

^  See  paper  on  the  "  Part  taken  by  Courts  of  Justice  in  the  Development  of 
International  Law,"  Report  of  Nineteenth  Conference  of  the  International  Law 
Association,  SF,;   Yale  Law  Journal,  x,  1;  American  Law  Review,  xxxv,  214. 

^  Art.  I,  sec.  8;  In  re  Martin,  Law  Reports,  Appeal  Cases,  1900  (Probate),  211. 


348  HISTORY  OF  COMMON  LAW 

international  law  of  all  peoples  is  made  by  all  peoples  from  day  to 
day  as  a  natural  outgrowth  of  international  relations  in  human 
society. 

There  must  be  something  of  a  governmental  character  behind  a 
law,  to  give  it  form  and  stamp  it  with  authority.  It  may  have 
authority  from  mere  popular  acceptance,  but  this  stamp  is  needed 
to  give  assurance  that  the  people  have  accepted  it.  In  every  civilized 
nation  there  is  some  form  of  Judicial  establishment  to  fulfill  this 
office.  It  does  not  make  law.  It  does  not,  at  least,  own  that  it  makes 
it.    But  it  declares  what  is  law  and  what  is  not. 

The  last  year  of  the  last  century  crowned  its  achievements  by 
providing  such  a  judicial  establishment  for  all  nations.  That  common 
law  of  all,  that  jus  gentium,  which  is  also  a  jus  inter  gentes,  has  now 
a  spokesman,  and  a  record  office. 

Elsewhere  in  the  series  of  Congresses  of  which  this  Exposition 
has  been  made  the  occasion,  the  institution  of  The  Hague  Tribunal, 
and  the  series  of  treaties  providing  for  the  reference  to  it  of  many 
of  the  minor  controversies  between  nations,  which  have  since  been 
negotiated,  will  have  fitting  mention.  It  is  enough  here  to  call  at- 
tention to  it  as  the  last,  best  outgrowth  of  human  society  at  large, 
in  its  progress  in  the  arts  of  life  —  the  true  arts  of  true  living. 

It  looks  to  nothing  less  than  the  gradual  formation  of  a  common 
law  on  one  subject  of  common  concern  for  all  nations,  —  a  world- 
law.^ 

The  government  of  the  Netherlands  has  also,  of  recent  years,  been 
doing  a  great  work,  which  must  have  broad  results,  toward  ordering 
the  disposition  before  the  ordinary  tribunals  of  private  controversies 
arising  out  of  a  conflict  between  the  laws  of  one  country  and  those 
of  another. 

I  have  spoken  of  the  history  of  every  nation  as  the  key  to  the 
nature  and  meaning  of  its  law. 

The  field  of  comparative  law  is  a  wilderness  to  one  who  does  not 
study  it  in  the  light  of  the  history  of  the  different  nations.  That 
history  forbids  us  to  hope  for  ultimate  uniformity.  It  encourages  us 
to  hope  for  ultimate  agreement  on  rules  by  which  a  conflict  of  laws 
operating  on  personal  and  private  rights  may  be  in  most  cases 
avoided.  This  will  be  simply  by  the  determination  of  which  of 
several  rules  shall  govern  under  certain  circumstances. 

The  recent  conferences  on  this  subject  at  The  Hague,  beginning 
with  that  of  1893  and  ending  with  that  of  1904,  have  approached 

^  The  work  of  this  court  will  be  effectively  supplemented  by  the  princely 
foundation  for  the  Nobel  Institute  for  the  Study  of  International  Law,  in  Norway. 
This  was  formally  opened  at  Christiania  on  February  12,  1904,  and  consists  of 
fifteen  jurists  forming  a  consultative  tribunal,  ready  to  give  advice  in  matters 
of  international  relation. 


HISTORY    OF  COMMON  LAW  349 

this  task  in  the  right  way.  They  have  sought  to  lay  down  one  rule  of 
action  for  all  Europe  only  so  far  as  this,  —  that  when  controversies 
depend  for  their  determination  on  whether  the  law  of  this  or  of  that 
country  shall  be  applied,  the  decision  as  to  the  applicable  law  shall 
be  made  according  to  a  certain  and  definite  principle  of  selection. 
The  laws  all  remain  different.  They  must  remain  different.  It  is  only 
the  choice  between  them  in  each  case  for  which  the  conventions 
make  provision. 

It  is  not  too  much  to  hope  that  they  will  receive,  besides  the 
ratifications  of  all  the  governments  which  have  participated  in  the 
conferences,  the  adhesion  of  others,  in  other  continents. 

The  private  law  as  well  as  the  public  law  of  the  world  will  thus, 
by  the  good  offices  of  one  of  the  lesser  powers,  rise  toward  a  position 
which,  once  the  dream  of  poets,  may  before  this  century  closes  be  in 
great  part  achieved.* 

^  See  the  description  of  the  work  of  The  Hague  Conferences  for  the  advance- 
ment of  Private  International  Law,  in  the  Official  Report  of  the  Universal  Congress 
of  Lawyers  and  Jurists,  held  at  the  St.  Louis  Exposition,  September  28-30,  1904 
ipp.  117-177;  332-378). 


THE  PROBLEMS  OF  TO-DAY  FOR  THE  HISTORY  OF  THE 

COMMON   LAW 

BY   JOHN   HENRY    WIGMORE 

[John  Henry  Wigmore,  Professor  in  the  Law  School  of  the  Northwestern  Univer- 
sity, Chicago,  and  Dean  of  the  Law  Faculty,  b.  March  4,  1863,  San  Francisco, 
California.  A.B.  1883;  LL.B.  1887;  A.M.  1887;  Prof essor  of  Anglo-American 
Law  in  Fukuzawa  University,  Tokyo,  Japan,  1889-92;  Professor  in  North- 
western University,  1893;  member  of  Asiatic  Society  of  Japan,  American  Bar 
Association,  American  Political  Science  Association.  Author  of  Australian 
Ballot  System;  Notes  on  Land  Tenure  and  Local  Institutions  in  Old  Japan; 
Treatise  on  Evidence;  etc.] 

A  chief  object  in  the  study  of  history  is  to  learn  the  lessons  which 
it  may  teach  for  the  future.  That  is  a  sufficient  excuse  for  consider- 
ing the  present  subject  from  the  practical  point  of  view.  "What 
has  been  done  about  it?"  is  an  inquiry  which  will  here  serv^e  to  lead 
to  the  further  one,  "What  is  to  he  done  about  it?"  In  the  light  of 
an  official  interpretation  vouchsafed  by  one  of  the  Vice-Presidents 
of  this  Congress,  the  inquiries  relevant  to  the  problems  of  to-day  for 
the  History  of  the  Common  Law  may  be  phrased  as  follows : 

I.  What  are  the  chief  historical  facts  or  influences  still  left  unknown 
or  obscure  in  our  law  and  the  efforts  anywhere  being  made  for  the  eluci- 
dation of  them  by  research? 

IL  What  are  the  methods  by  which  further  investigation  of  our  legal 
history  can  be  encouraged,  and  its  hitherto  attained  results  be  made 
broadly  known  and  influential  in  the  legal  frofessionf 

III.  What  are  its  chief  lessons  and  warnings  for  the  future  tendencies 
of  our  legal  history? 

I.  Vangerow  said  in  his  Pandecten,  speaking  of  the  early  history 
of  procedure  in  Roman  law:  "All  books  written  on  this  subject 
before  the  year  1820  are  useless";  because  in  that  year  appeared  the 
first  edition  of  the  text  of  Gains 's  Institutes,  newly  discovered  to  the 
world  in  1816  by  Niebuhr,  In  the  same  way,  it  might  almost  be 
said,  of  the  historical  development  of  English  private  law,  that  all 
books  written  before  1881  may  be  ignored;  because  in  that  year 
begins  the  triple  lustrum  marked  by  Mr.  Justice  Holmes's  The  Common 
Law,  Sir  James  Stephen's  History  of  the  Criminal  Law,  the  Selden 
Society's  initial  pubUcations,  Professor  Ames's  essays  on  the  History 
of  Civil  Actions,  and  Sir  Frederick  Pollock's  and  Professor  Maitland's 
treatise  on  the  history  of  English  law  before  the  time  of  Edward  I. 
Up  to  that  period,  to  be  sure,  much  had  already  been  done  to  clear 
the  way.  The  surrounding  regions  had  been  thoroughly  opened; 
that  of  constitutional  history,  by  Stubbs,  Gneist,  and  many  others; 


THE   PROBLEMS   OF   TO-DAY  351 

that  of  economic  landholding  conditions,  by  Seebohm  and  others; 
that  of  commercial  conditions,  by  Ashley,  Cunningham,  Gross,  and 
others.  For  private  law,  too,  the  work  of  Palgrave,  Bigelow,  Young, 
and  a  few  others  had  revealed  to  us  that  the  older  lines  of  Coke, 
Blackstone,  Spence,  Reeves,  Finlayson,  and  Crabbe  would  have  to 
be  entirely  discarded  for  the  earlier  part  of  the  law.  But  Mr.  Justice 
Holmes's  stimulating  book  on  the  Common  Law  now  arrived  and 
pointed  out  in  detail  the  field  of  necessary  research  for  later  times; 
in  fact,  it  was  probably  this  book  which  really  created  whatever  now 
exists  at  large  in  the  older  generation  at  the  bar  of  taste  and  appre- 
ciation for  the  study  of  the  history  of  our  law.  Sir  James  Stephen's 
work,  shortly  ensuing,  most  philosophical,  comprehensive,  and 
entertaining,  was  destined  to  stand  future  testing  at  probably  all 
important  points.  When  to  these  were  added  the  publications  of 
Ames,  Pollock  and  Maitland,  there  were  then  achieved,  for  the  first 
time,  certain  final  results  on  a  large  scale;  and  it  became  possible 
to  study  continuously  the  history  of  the  main  doctrines  of  sub- 
stantive law  and  procedure  from  the  beginning  to  present  times. 
The  researches  of  Thayer,  Liebermann,  Jenks,  Salmond,  Scrutton, 
and  other  recent  workers  in  special  fields  and  the  later  publications 
of  the  Selden  Society  and  its  editors,  and  of  other  English  societies, 
merely  increase  the  emphasis  of  the  period's  importance. 

What  has  been  gained,  then,  in  the  last  fifteen  years,  by  way  of 
tangible  results?  And  what  remains  to  be  especially  worked  upon? 
Here  it  is  convenient  to  map  out  the  subject  in  three  regions;  (A)  the 
external  history  of  English  law,  (B)  the  internal  history,  and  (C)  its 
transatlantic  or  American  history;  and  it  will  be  found  that  in  these 
three  regions  the  acquisitions  of  knowledge  have  been,  in  that  order^ 
much,  less,  and  least,  respectively. 

(A)  What  may  be  called  the  external  history  includes  the  relation 
and  influence  of  (1)  Germanic  law,  (2)  Roman  law,  (3)  Canon  law, 
and  (4)  Continental  mercantile  and  maritime  law. 

(1)  The  Germanic  law  influenced  the  English  law  through  two 
channels,  just  as  the  Missouri  and  the  Mississippi  unite  to  form  one 
stream  which  thereafter  takes  the  latter  name.  The  Germanic  law 
of  the  Continent  was  directly  transferred  by  the  Saxons,  Jutes,  and 
other  immigrants  of  400-800  a.  d.;  with  this,  in  1000-1200  a.  d. 
united  the  law  of  the  Norman  invaders.  The  precise  content  of  both 
of  these  elements,  together  with  the  resulting  fusion,  and  the  share  of 
the  contribution  of  each,  may  be  said  to  be  now  for  the  most  part 
known  and  described.  For  Germanic  law  in  the  large  sense,  the 
work  of  Brunner,  Heusler,  v.  Amira,  Gierke,  Bethmann-Hollweg, 
Stobbe,  Schroeder,  and  some  writers  in  special  fields,  has  made  clear 
all  that  we  need;  except  that  Brunner's  history  has  not  gone  beyond 


352  HISTORY  OF  COMMON  LAW 

the  900 's  (though  this  does  not  directly  concern  our  own  history). 
For  Norman  law,  the  work  of  Esmein,  Flach,  Brissaud,  Viollet, 
Beaune,  Tardif,  and  Glasson,  with  a  few  others,  makes  possible  the 
most  necessary  comparisons.  The  connections  may  be  observed  by 
tracing  the  topics,  one  by  one,  in  those  writers  and  in  Pollock  and 
Maitland's  history.  What  is  lacking  is  merely  a  detailed  analysis,  to 
be  made  from  this  special  point  of  view. 

(2)  The  Roman  law  influence  was  never  much  more  than  indirect. 
That  is,  there  was  never  a  deliberate  receptio  or  adoption  (as  in 
Germany  from  Italian  jurists  in  the  1400's-1500's,  or  in  Japan  from 
the  French  and  German  codes,  in  the  1800's,  or  in  the  Rhine  provinces 
from  the  French  code  in  the  1800's).  The  revival  of  the  continental 
study  of  Roman  law  was  then  as  yet  too  recent;  and  there  were 
other  reasons.  What  happened  was  a  certain  large  inspiration  of  form 
and  method,  through  the  minds  of  the  clerical  judges  and  advisers, 
administering  the  customary  law  during  the  llOO's  and  1200's. 
Thereafter,  the  only  direct  adoption  consisted  in  the  casual  intrusion 
of  scraps  of  rules  or  analogies  or  phrases,  here  and  there,  into  the 
already  definite  and  homogeneous  body  of  English  law.  This  much  is 
established  by  the  researches  of  Pollock  and  Maitland  and  Scrutton. 
A  few  details  only  remain  to  be  explored. 

(3)  The  canon  law  was  a  much  more  large  and  likely  element  of 
mixture.  It  could  and  did  come  in  by  two  avenues,  (a)  In  the  first 
place,  the  knowledge  and  practice  of  the  king's  clerical  justiciars  and 
advisers  from  1100  to  1300  affected  the  form  and  method  of  English 
law.  The  crude  customary  English  law  was  thus  (in  the  words  of 
Pollock  and  Maitland)  rationalized  by  the  canon  law.  A  little,  but 
not  much,  was  directly  borrowed.  This  part  of  the  influence  is  known 
with  some  fullness.  (6)  In  the  next  place,  there  continued  for  several 
centuries  after  the  definite  constitution  of  the  courts  (4)  King's 
Bench,  Exchequer,  Common  Pleas,  Courts  Baron,  and  the  like  (in 
which  the  customary  law  was  distinctively  English) ,  several  import- 
ant courts  in  which  either  the  substantive  law,  or  the  procedure,  or 
both,  or  a  part  of  either,  was  professedly  based  on  the  canon  law; 
the  courts  of  the  Church,  of  Chancery,  of  Requests,  of  the  Star 
Chamber,  and  of  the  Admiralty  represented  almost  a  majority  of 
English  courts,  not  only  in  number,  but  also  in  quantity  and  im- 
portance of  judicial  business.  By  the  1500's  and  early  1600's  there 
was  a  keen  rivalry,  of  which  the  ultimate  issue  really  hung  for  a  time 
in  the  balance.  Professor  Maitland's  essay  on  the  ''  Renaissance  of 
English  Law  "  has  made  it  clear  how  narrow  was  the  escape  of  the 
common  law.  Although  the  canon  law  system  did  lose  the  upper 
hand,  and  the  courts  which  it  dominated  were  one  by  one  abolished 
or  amalgamated,  still  its  methods  and  its  substance  were  in  large 
part  preserved  in  the  field  of  law  where  they  had  developed  in  these 


THE  PROBLEMS  OF  TO-DAY         353 

courts.  Thus  in  the  law  of  marriage,  wills,  chancery  in  general, 
admiralty  in  general,  and  elsewhere,  portions  of  the  substantive  law 
and  most  of  the  procedural  rules  are  owed  to  the  canon  law;  and 
modern  statutes  have  even  imitated  a  good  deal  of  this  in  the  ordinary 
law.  Most  of  the  facts  of  their  history  are  already  known  in  detail, 
under  the  different  bodies  of  law.  What  remains  now  for  the  his-^ 
torian  is  a  comprehensive  collation  of  these  varied  effects.  This  will 
require  the  broadest  survey  of  both  systems,  and  he  who  will  under- 
take it  has  not  yet  disclosed  himself. 

To  the  foregoing  influence  of  the  Roman  and  canon  law  must  be 
added  the  casual  insertion  of  a  theory  or  a  phrase,  here  and  there,  in 
the  common  law  courts,  by  a  few  of  the  well-read  judges  of  earlier 
times,  like  Lord  Holt,  Lord  Mansfield,  and  in  modern  times.  Lord 
Bowen,  Sir  George  Jessel,  Chief  Justice  Kent,  Mr.  Justice  Story, 
and  Mr.  Justice  Holmes,  who  have  occasionally  invoked  some  analogy 
learned  by  them  from  the  other  systems.  In  this  way  the  law  of 
bailments,  of  fictitious  assumpsit  (or  quasi-contract),  of  conflict 
of  laws,  of  partnership,  and  perhaps  other  subjects,  has  received  a 
few  important  marks.  The  systematic  collation  of  these,  also,  has 
still  to  be  accomplished  by  the  historian. 

(4)  The  Continental  mercantile  and  maritime  law  contributed  a 
great  deal.  That  of  the  admiralty  is  fairly  separable,  and  it  may  be 
said  that  with  the  Selden  Society's  publication  of  Mr.  Marsden's  edi- 
tion of  Select  Pleas  of  the  Admiralty  and  the  special  modern  treatises, 
little  remains  unknown  of  the  history  of  the  law  as  a  body.  Its 
principal  doctrines  have  still  to  be  fully  traced  in  detail.  But  the 
general  mercantile  law,  omitting  sales,  land-carriers,  and  agency 
(which  are  almost  purely  indigenous  topics),  and  including  com- 
mercial paper,  partnership,  insurance,  corporations,  and  general 
maritime  law  (with  bills  of  lading  and  factors) ,  is  inextricably  bound 
up  with  the  history  across  the  channel,  and  its  detailed  story  remains 
one  of  the  greatest  and  most  interesting  tasks  of  the  future,  (a)  Of 
these  topics,  the  history  of  corporation  law  is  perhaps  the  most 
complicated,  because,  besides  its  economic  aspects,  it  involves  three 
distinct  elements,  the  ecclesiastical  corporation  (more  or  less  de- 
pendent on  imported  conceptions),  the  land-owning,  franchise-own- 
ing, and  quasi-political  boroughs  and  other  communities,  and  the 
commercial  and  industrial  guilds  and  later  joint-stock  companies;  the 
last  two  groups  have  a  long  indigenous  history,  but  the  analogies  on 
the  Continent  are  so  important  that  their  comparison  is  an  inevitable 
duty.  Availing  himself  of  Pollock  and  Maitland's  survey  of  the 
beginnings  of  this  history,  and  of  Professor  Williston's  and  others' 
essays  in  the  later  period,  the  legal  historian  has  still  to  trace  the 
connected  story  of  development  in  all  aspects.  (6)  For  commercial 
paper,  insurance,  and  maritime  commercial  law,  almost  everything 


354  HISTORY   OF   COMMON   LAW 

(apart  from  two  or  three  scattered  essays)  has  yet  to  be  done,  that 
is,  for  the  story  before  the  1700's.  The  whole  scene  shifts  across  the 
channel.  Even  there  the  curtain  is  but  half  raised.  Brunner  has 
illuminated  part  of  the  history  of  commercial  paper.  Goldschmidt's 
great  history,  cut  short  by  his  untimely  death,  did  not  get  much 
beyond  the  Mediterranean  history  down  to  the  1400's.  The  Hansa 
and  Flemish  development  seems  not  to  be  yet  fully  explored.  The 
three  centuries  in  England  before  Lord  Holt  (1400-1690),  when  all 
the  Continental  mercantile  methods  were  being  learned  by  English 
traders,  form  undoubtedly  the  most  fascinating  and  obscure  part  of 
the  untold  story.  To  illustrate  its  possibilities:  In  1609  a  statute 
of  James  I  forbade  the  use  of  merchants'  account-books  in  evidence, 
except  as  between  themselves,  after  one  year  and  for  items  of  over 
forty  shillings.  This  statute  does  not  explain  itself.  Perhaps  it  looks 
like  a  blow  at  the  Dutch  and  Hansa  merchants,  who  were  intruding 
alien  customs  in  London.  Yet  Italian  history  shows  numerous 
identical  statutes  during  the  generation  just  preceding  and  following. 
Was  this  part  of  a  general  movement?  Was  there  a  borrowing?  The 
largest  sort  of  a  survey  is  needed  for  the  historian  in  this  field,  and 
his  search  must  range  from  Venice  to  Wisby  and  Oleron,  as  well  as 
from  the  court  of  Pie  Powder  to  Lord  Holt's  dealings  with  promissory 
notes. 

(B)  The  internal  history  of  the  law  (so  far  as  it  has  not  been  noticed 
in  what  was  above  said)  may  be  likened  in  its  present  state  to  an 
unfinished  house,  whose  foundations  have  been  completely  laid  and 
whose  frame  and  beams  are  erected.  The  roof  is  yet  lacking  and  all 
the  filling  in  of  the  walls  and  plaster  and  flooring.  Its  plan  and  shape 
and  divisions  can  be  plainly  understood;  but  it  cannot  j'^et  be  in- 
habited, and  many  kinds  of  workmen  must  yet  labor  upon  it.  These 
foundations  are  those  of  Professor  Maitland  and  Sir  Frederick  Pollock 
in  their  history.  This  frame  and  these  cross-beams  are  chiefly  the 
essays  of  Professor  Ames.  It  may  be  said  that  down  to  the  1300's 
practically  the  whole  history  of  our  law  is  established;  and  that  from 
the  1300's  to  the  1800's  the  history  of  the  main  doctrines  of  private 
law  which  have  remained  obscure  or  misunderstood  (excepting  com- 
mercial law)  have  been  supplied.  But  the  painstaking  completion  of 
scores  of  important  details  during  these  five  hundred  years  remains 
to  be  done.  It  would  be  impossible  here  to  enumerate  the  precise 
parts.  Merely  as  examples  of  some  of  those  that  have  been  supplied 
may  be  named  Mr.  Scrutton's  history  of  copyright;  Professor  Beale's 
history  of  a  bailee's  liability;  Mr.  Veeder's  history  of  libel  and  slander; 
and  Professor  Gray's  and  Mr.  Digby's  work  in  real  property.  As 
examples  of  those  that  have  not  been  supplied  may  be  taken  the 
history  of  mortgage  law, ^  the  history  of  personal  suretyship,  the  history 
'  This  gap  is  now  being  filled  by  Mr.  Hazeltine's  essays. 


THE  PROBLEMS   OF   TO-DAY  355 

of  auxiliary  legal  remedies,  and  of  legal  process  in  general,  the  history 
of  mercantile  law  above  mentioned  (chiefly  commercial  paper,  mari- 
time law,  and  corporations),  the  history  of  conflict  of  laws,  of  in- 
solvency laws,  of  public  officers'  liability,  and  of  some  doctrines  of 
equity. 

(C)  The  transatlantic  or  American  history  of  our  law  falls  naturally 
into  four  parts:  (1)  the  colonial  history,  (2)  the  later  judicial  devel- 
opment of  the  substantive  common  law  as  modified  by  statute  in 
a  few  parts,  (3)  the  statutory  forms  of  procedure,  and  (4)  the  adop- 
tion of  bodies  of  Spanish  law  in  the  Southwest. 

(1)  The  colonial  law  remains  as  yet  a  rich  and  untilled  field.  The 
doctors  of  philosophy  have  sufficiently  diagnosed  almost  all  of  the 
political  and  economic  conditions  which  surrounded  it,  and  the  editors 
have  edited  many  portions  of  the  archives;  but  the  professedly  legal 
historian  of  the  private  law  has  not  yet  arisen.  We  know  that  much 
law  was  brought  directly  over;  the  Massachusetts  Colony  sent  for 
Coke's  Reports,  so  that  it  should  not  be  forgotten.  We  also  know 
that  some  colonies  discountenanced  professional  lawyers,  so  that 
much  inherited  law  was  discarded  or  mutilated.  We  know,  too,  that 
several  of  the  many  sound  reforms  which  the  Cromwellian  Common- 
wealth had  planned,  but  the  restoration  of  Charles  had  defeated, 
were  carried  out  in  some  of  the  colonies,  —  for  example,  the  com- 
pulsory registration  of  conveyances  of  land.  But  the  systematic 
exhumation  of  the  private  law  as  a  whole,  so  far  as  it  appears  on  the 
records,  has  not  been  attempted,  even  for  a  single  colony.  Nor  would 
it  be,  in  any  part,  of  merely  dead  historic  interest.  Chief  Justice 
Kent  decided  a  great  many  eases  from  his  EngUsh  reading,  not  from 
local  traditions  or  records;  and  after  the  English  reports  began  to 
multiply  rapidly,  from  1790  to  1810,  they  were  chiefly  relied  on 
even  here.  But  the  interesting  thing  is  often  seen,  when  an  American 
rule  is  found  to  differ  from  an  English  one,  that  it  differs  because  it 
had  already  been  different  in  the  tradition  before  1800.  All  this 
body  of  prior  tradition  remains  to  be  systematically  expounded. 

(2)  The  development  of  substantive  law  since  1800  is  to  be  found 
usually  described  with  sufficiency  in  the  treatises  on  the  special 
topics  of  the  law.  In  the  law  of  real  property,  of  marriage,  and  of 
other  subjects,  there  have  been  numerous  important  variations.  But 
these  local  historical  features  are  not  so  significant  for  the  general 
understanding  of  our  present  law  as  the  prior  history  of  English  law 
itself,  and  the  time  has  hardly  yet  come  when  a  comprehensive  survey 
is  either  feasible  or  necessary.  It  is  only  to  be  noticed  that  the 
writers  of  treatises  do  not  usually  handle  their  subject  as  much  in  the 
historical  spirit  as  it  now  deserves. 

(3)  The  development  of  procedural  changes  has  been  widespread. 
For  the  code  system,  so-called,  its  history  has  been  described  by 


356  HISTORY  OF   COMMON  LAW 

Professor  Hepburn  and  others.  But  in  the  older  states,  such  as 
Massachusetts  and  Connecticut,  which  still  do  not  use  the  name  of 
code,  much  history  has  been  made  which  deserves  to  be  chronicled, 
but  as  yet  has  not  been  systematically  described  in  its  causes  and 
circumstances.  Such  a  history  must  begin  with  Bentham  at  one 
extreme  and  with  the  American  judicial  organization  at  the  other, 
and  will  have  much  ground  to  cover. 

(4)  The  land  system  of  the  United  States  Government  titles  has 
affected  all  the  Southern,  Central,  and  Western  states  in  general,  and 
the  Spanish  system  in  particular  has  affected  those  of  California, 
Texas,  Missouri,  Arkansas,  New  Mexico,  and  Arizona.  The  historical 
aspects  of  this,  which  are  interesting,  have  still  to  be  depicted. 

II.  Our  second  inquiry  is:  What  are  the  methods  by  which  the 
further  investigation  of  our  history  can  be  encouraged,  and  its  hitherto 
attained  results  be  made  broadly  known  and  influential  in  the  legal 
profession  9  Our  inquiry  may  be  stated  in  two  questions :  (A)  How 
can  we  get  more  history  A^Titten?  and  (B)  How  can  we  make  known 
what  is  written? 

(A)  The  first  question  is  a  necessary  one  for  us  to  face  for  two  chief 
reasons :  One  is  that  our  bar  as  a  whole  does  not  demand  historical 
books,  and  therefore  there  are  few  investigators  and  fewer  books. 
The  other  reason  is  that  our  universities  in  the  United  States  do 
not  in  general  exist  (as  those  of  the  European  Continent  do)  for  the 
main  purpose  of  providing  learned  men  with  a  comfortable  living 
while  engaged  in  research;  they  are,  primarily,  teaching,  not  inves- 
tigating bodies.  Consequently  the  pursuit  of  historical  research 
tends  to  receive  less  than  its  relative  share  of  activity.  It  is  our 
duty  to  canvass  and  to  encourage  all  feasible  means  of  increasing 
this  activity.    What  practical  means  are  there? 

(1)  First  of  all,  those  who  have  vindicated  their  right  to  possess 
this  field  should  be  urged  and  stimulated  to  continue  its  fruitful 
tillage;  and  not  to  abandon  it  for  other  fields  tempting  to  their 
versatile  sympathies.  The  greatest  loss  which  English  legal  history, 
in  the  strict  sense,  has  ever  suffered  is  marked  by  Professor  Maitland's 
excursus  into  the  economic  region  of  Domesday  Book  and  the 
minutiae  of  the  primitive  English  land  system,  and  by  Professor 
Ames's  varied  trips  into  the  modern  realms  of  commercial  paper, 
admiralty,  and  partnership.  This  Congress  here  assembled  should 
issue  to  those  scholars  a  peremptory  writ  of  Ne  exeat  regno  Angliae 
juris  hisloriae.  Let  us  appeal  to  them  in  the  most  urgent  tones  to 
continue  the  cultivation  of  those  peculiar  fields  whose  fruits  no  one 
else,  in  default  of  them,  is  either  competent  or  likely  to  gather  for 
a  generation  or  more  to  come.* 

*  The  motive,  it  may  be  supposed,  for  these  great  scholars'  temporary  abandon- 
ment of  the  field  of  later  medieval  and  early  modern  history  is  the  scantiness  of 


THE   PROBLEMS   OF   TO-DAY  357 

(2)  Let  a  committee  of  mature  scholars  map  out  a  list  of  the  pre- 
cise topics  now  most  demanding  further  research,  and  let  the  younger 
scholars  in  our  university  faculties  be  thus  supplied  with  intelli- 
gent lines  for  their  ambitions  to  pursue  during  the  coming  generation. 

(3)  Let  the  universities  found  a  journal  or  series  of  proceedings 
or  studies  in  which  historical  essays,  long  or  short,  can  be  insured 
a  publication. 

(4)  Let  the  universities  unitedly  offer  an  annual  or  biennial  prize 
of  a  substantial  sum  for  historical  essays,  perhaps  requiring  the 
amount  to  be  spent  in  study  abroad. 

(5)  Finally,  but  most  important  of  all,  let  the  materials  for  his- 
torical research  be  more  amply  provided.      (1)   As  for  materials 
already  printed,  this  means  that  there  ought  to  be  at  least  five 
libraries,  in  different  centres  of  this  country,  whose  equipment  in 
English  materials  reasonably  approaches  in  fullness  that  of  the 
Harvard  Law  School.    It  may  not  be  longer  possible  to  obtain  in 
multiplicate  all  of  its  sources,  and  in  any  case  not  without  some  years 
of  search.    Nevertheless,  the  fact  ought  to  be  faced  that  in  order  to 
promote  a  healthy  diffusion  of  historical  activity,  adequate  means 
should  exist  in  at  least  five  widely  separated  places.     This  would 
require  from  $10,000  to  $25,000  each  to  supplement  the  collections 
now  existing  at  some  points.   (2)  As  for  the  materials  not  yet  printed, 
the  cause  demands  a  decided  expansion  and  acceleration  of  work. 
These  materials,  roughly  divided,  are  (a)  the  Rolls  and  other  judicial 
documents  and  early  treatises  now  being  gradually  reprinted  by  the 
English  Record  Commissioners  and  the  Camden,  Surtees,  Pipe  Roll, 
and  Selden  Societies;   (6)  the  Year  Books;  (c)  the  American  colonial 
records.    As  to  the  first  of  these  groups  the  various  efforts  now  being 
made  may  be  trusted  to  mature  as  rapidly  as  is  feasible.    As  to  the 
second  of  these  groups,  the  Year  Books,  something  more  can  be  and 
ought  to  be  done  to  speed  the  reediting.^  Since  it  is  largely  a  question 
of  funds,  the  United  States  ought  to  contribute  a  share  to  this  task  of 
common  benefit.  As  a  beginning,  an  assessment  should  be  requested 
from  every  university  in  the  Association  of  American  Law  Schools,  in 
the  amount  of  $100  each  for  every  200  students  in  its  school;  this 
assessment  to  be  pledged  biennially  or  triennially.    As  for  the  third 
group,  colonial  records  (in  which,  indeed,  much  has  already  been  done 
by  Massachusetts,  Rhode  Island,  and  New  Hampshire),  the  State 
Bar  Associations  of  the  Atlantic  states  should  undertake  to  secure 
the  printing  by  a  state  commission  of  the  distinctively  legal  material. 

the  materials  at  present  accessible  for  studies  in  that  epoch.  Work  done  now 
could  hardly  be  expected  to  stand,  after  a  generation.  This  dearth  of  materials 
(to  be  noticed  later)  can  be  remedied  in  time;  but  the  reasons  are  all  the  stronger 
for  hastening  that  fortunate  day. 

*  At  this  moment,  the  arrest  of  progress  seems  to  be  due  chiefly  to  the  difficulty 
of  finding  persons  who  combine  in  equal  and  adequate  degree  the  skill  of  a  palaeo- 
grapher and  the  training  of  a  lawyer. 


358  HISTORY  OF  COMMON   LAW 

With  such  expedients  we  shall  have  done  something  to  secure 
a  firm  and  lasting  growth  for  historical  research. 

(B)  But  the  second  part  of  our  question  is  perhaps  more  pressing, 
certainly  more  puzzling  to  answer:  How  can  we  make  the  Bench 
and  Bar  to  know,  to  possess,  and  to  utilize  what  is  already  written? 
True  culture,  says  Matthew  Arnold,  is  inspired  not  only  by  the 
scientific  passion,  but  by  the  passion  of  doing  good.  "  Culture  is 
considered,  not  merely  as  the  endeavor  to  see  and  learn  this,  but 
the  endeavor,  also,  to  make  it  prevail."  How,  then,  can  we  make  the 
acquired  truths  of  history  prevail? 

It  is  plain  to  us  all  that  our  profession  in  this  country  radically 
lacks  taste,  and  interest,  and  common  attainments,  in  the  history 
of  our  law.  It  is  absorbed  in  the  practice.  "  Not  to  know  what  has 
been  transacted  in  former  times,"  says  Cicero,  "is  to  continue 
always  a  child.  If  no  use  is  made  of  the  labors  of  past  ages,  the 
world  must  remain  always  in  the  infancy  of  knowledge."  Of  what 
ultimate  use  is  our  historical  research  if  its  results  remain  practically 
unknown  and  unused  by  the  profession  itself  in  the  interpretation 
and  administration  of  the  present  law?  It  is  depressing,  it  is  irritating 
to  observe  how  scant  is  the  consideration,  how  dense  the. ignorance, 
shown  by  the  practical  administrators  of  the  law  when  its  history 
becomes  material  in  their  work.  The  crude  pronouncements  of  a 
hundred  years  ago  seem  still  to  suffice.  There  might  almost  as  well 
have  been,  for  them,  no  history  written  during  the  past  two  or  three 
generations.  The  astonishing  obstinacy  of  this  narrow  professional 
habit  may  be  illustrated  by  a  single  but  entirely  typical  instance. 
Ex  uno  disce  omnes.  If  there  is  one  topic  which  is  the  pride  and  the 
commonplace  of  our  law,  it  is  jury  trial;  if  there  is  one  topic  more 
than  another  which  is  known  to  have  a  history,  it  is  jury  trial;  if 
there  is  one  question  more  than  another  in  which  history  can  con- 
tribute to  the  settlement  of  modern  practical  questions,  it  is  whether 
in  trial  by  jury,  as  handed  down  from  of  old,  the  number  twelve  is 
essential;  and,  finally,  if  there  is  one  tribunal  more  than  another 
which  has  by  common  attribution  the  highest  legal  attainments  and 
the  least  excuse  for  lacking  them,  it  is  the  Supreme  Court  of  the 
United  States.  In  the  year  1897,  then,  in  discussing  this  question 
historically  (in  Thompson  v.  Utah),^  the  opinion  of  the  Supreme 
Court  of  the  United  States  of  America  declares  that  the  well-known 
clause  of  Magna  Charta  pledging  a  trial  by  judgment  of  the  free- 
man's peers  signified  trial  by  jury.^  Now  in  1895,  two  years  before, 
the  epoch-making  history  of  Pollock  &  Maitland  had  appeared  in 

»  170  U.  S.  343,  349;  18  Sup.  620. 

'  "  When  Magna  Charta  declared  that  no  freeman  should  be  deprived  of  life, 
etc.,  '  but  by  the  judgment  of  his  peers  by  the  law  of  the  land,'  it  referred  to 
a  trial  by  twelve  jurors." 


THE   PROBLEMS   OF   TO-DAY  359 

the  face  of  all  men;  in  1891,  six  years  before,  the  history  of  jury 
trial  had  been  reexamined  in  the  Harvard  Law  Review,  by  Professor 
Thayer,  one  of  the  two  greatest  authorities  on  constitutional  law 
then  living,  outside  of  the  Federal  Supreme  Court  itself;  and  in 
1875,  twenty-two  years  before,  had  appeared  in  an  American  edition 
Mr.  Forsyth's  History  of  Trial  by  Jury.  In  all  three  of  these  it  had 
been  plainly  pointed  out  that  the  Magna  Charta  clause  did  not  sig- 
nify jury  trial,  but  precisely  the  opposite;  namely  the  Barons  were 
opposed  to  jury  trial. ^  Yet,  with  all  these  authorities  staring  from 
the  library  shelves,  the  "most  exalted  tribunal  in  the  world"  harks 
back  to  Blackstone's  crude  authority  of  one  hundred  and  thirty 
years  before;  and  perpetuates  indelibly  upon  the  records  of  our  law 
a  gross  error  of  fact  upon  one  of  the  most  simple,  most  marked, 
most  important,  and  best  known  points  in  our  history.  We  need  not 
aspire,  perhaps,  to  the  fortunate  condition  of  some  of  the  European 
courts,  where  (as  at  Basel  in  Switzerland)  the  Chief  Justice  is  the 
author  of  one  of  the  three  greatest  histories  of  Germanic  law,  or 
(as  at  Paris)  the  author  of  the  leading  history  in  his  own  language 
of  the  procedure  of  the  Holy  Inquisition.  But  it  is  surely  a  simple 
and  defensible  ambition  that  the  judges  of  our  highest  court  should 
read  somebody  else's  book  of  legal  history  enough  to  keep  up  with 
the  common  and  established  facts  of  our  past.  It  is  held,  as  a  rule 
of  our  law,  that  judicial  notice  will  be  taken  of  ancient  books  of 
history;  and  it  would  seem  that  our  judges  will  take  notice  of  no 
other  kind  of  books!  Truly  it  ought  not  to  be  said  of  our  courts, 
as  Rabelais'  Pantagruel  conceded  to  the  learned  doctors  of  the  law, 
that  as  for  "  knowledge  of  antiquities  and  history,  they  were  truly 
laden  with  them,  —  as  a  toad  is  with  feathers! " 

If  we  ask  what  is  to  be  done,  then,  for  the  propagation  of  the 
general  knowledge  of  what  is  already  established  by  our  historical 
scholars,  we  may  take  in  turn  the  three  parts  of  our  legal  profession, 
(1)  the  Bench,  (2)  the  Bar,  (3)  the  students  of  law. 

(1)  As  for  the  Bench,  we  may  as  well  concede  that  it  is  vain  to 
hope  by  any  measures  to  add  this  acquirement  where  it  is  lacking. 
"Old  mastiffs,"  Pantagruel  called  them;  and  it  is  a  truism  that  you 
cannot  teach  an  old  dog  new  tricks.  Rudolph  von  Ihering,  the 
witty  historian  of  Roman  law,  lamenting  the  imperviousness  of  the 
German  Bar  to  an  interest  in  that  history,  declared  that  the  right 
man  would  some  day  be  born  who  would  serve  up  history  as  appe- 
tizingly  as  a  French  cook  could  disguise  a  piece  of  sole-leather  with 
one  of  those  inimitable  sauces.  Pending  that  genius's  arrival,  his 
prescription  was  a  good  cigar,  a  comfortable  stuffed  chair,  and  the 

»  PoUock  &  Maitland,  151;  Thayer,  56,  65;  Forsyth,  91  ("  It  is  a  common  but 
erroneous  opinion  that  the  judicium  parium,  or  trial  by  one's  peers,  had  reference 
tothe  jury  "). 


360  HISTORY  OF  COMMON   LAW 

feet  on  the  mantelpiece  ad  lib.,  as  the  best  aid  to  the  exercise  of  the 
historical  imagination.  If  a  box  of  Havanas,  by  Ihering's  prescrip- 
tion, could  be  furnished  to  judges  with  every  copy  of  Pollock  and 
Maitland,  perhaps  we  might  expect  something.  For  most  judges, 
such  artificial  stimulus  must  be  provided. 

Fortunately,  there  are  always  exceptions.  Where  the  instinct  of 
culture,  that  is,  of  a  worthy  and  high-souled  curiosity  is  seated 
beneath  the  judical  ermine,  there  will  be  found  a  judicial  regard  for 
the  history  of  our  law,  —  as  in  Doe  of  New  Hampshire,  Gray  of 
Massachusetts,  Mitchell  of  Minnesota,  Daly  of  New  York,  Cooley 
of  Michigan  (to  name  some  of  those  who  have  passed  away),  and 
among  those  still  active,  to  name  only  two  or  three  prominent  ones, 
Holmes  of  Massachusetts  and  of  the  Federal  Court,  Dillon,  now 
retired,  McClain  of  Iowa,  and  Baldwin  of  Connecticut. 

(2)  So,  also,  for  the  practitioners  at  the  Bar,  it  is  too  late  to  do 
anything  directly  except  for  those  who  still  realize  that  knowledge 
is  unending  and  who  continue  to  be  students  of  the  law. 

(3)  The  great  practical  question  therefore  becomes.  What  can  we 
do  to  teach  the  knowledge  of  history  to  students  of  law,  and  that 
chiefly,  of  course,  in  our  schools  of  law? 

(1)  In  the  first  place,  the  materials  now  existing  in  the  English 
language  must  be  collected  from  scattered  corners  and  brought  to- 
gether in  a  series  of  accessible  volumes.  It  is  practically  impossible 
to  set  a  class  of  students  at  work  on  the  material  in  its  present  form, 
because  for  the  purposes  of  a  large  body  of  students  multiplicate 
entire  sets  of  the  periodicals  or  copies  of  rare  pamphlets  would  be 
required.  For  example,  an  acquaintance  with  Professor  Ames's 
indispensable  researches  into  the  history  of  the  civil  actions  cannot 
be  completely  exacted  of  an  entire  class  of  students,  simply  because 
a  school  cannot  ordinarily  possess  a  sufficient  number  of  the  entire 
sets  of  the  Review  in  which  alone  they  are  now  accessible.  The  best 
practical  service  that  can  at  this  moment  be  rendered  to  the  study 
of  legal  history  would  be  the  work  of  a  committee  doing  two  things: 
(a)  the  compilation  of  a  bibliography  of  all  articles  in  periodicals, 
all  pamphlets,  and  all  special  chapters  in  general  treatises,  dealing 
with  the  history  of  any  part  of  our  law;  (6)  the  selection,  from  this 
bibliography,  of  the  most  useful  articles,  pamphlets,  and  chapters, 
for  reprinting  in  a  series  of  ten  or  twelve  volumes,  to  be  used  by 
instructors  as  reference  materials  in  all  subjects  and  for  all  grades 
of  students;  the  volumes  to  be  subscribed  for  by  universities  and 
other  libraries  to  an  extent  sufficient  to  guarantee  publication. 

(2)  In  the  second  place,  this  same  committee,  or  another  one,  must 
provide  for  the  gradual  translation  and  publication  of  three  or  four 
of  the  greatest  Continental  works  of  legal  history  on  the  period  which 
shows  the  foundations  of  our  own  history.    The  history  of  English 


THE   PROBLEMS   OF   TO-DAY  361 

law,  on  both  sides  of  the  channel,  is  undoubtedly,  as  Mr.  Freeman 
used  to  emphasize,  for  European  history  in  general,  "from  its  first 
glimmerings  to  our  own  day,  one  unbroken  drama."  We  must 
sedulously  propagate  this  view  of  it.  "  I  am  ashamed,"  said  Emerson, 
"to  see  what  a  shallow  village  tale  our  so-called  history  is."  We 
must  do  all  we  can,  for  the  aspiring  and  worthy  student,  to  remove 
from  our  history  that  quality  of  a  village  tale  which  the  technicalities 
of  professional  practice  tend  to  emphasize.  It  is  useless  to  argue, 
in  opposition,  that  the  student  fit  for  these  things  will  always  have 
the  French  and  German  languages  at  his  command,  and  that  therefore 
a  translation  is  unnecessary.  The  fact  remains  that  a  large  propor- 
tion of  them  have  not,  and  that  the  exorbitant  demands  of  other  parts 
of  their  legal  education  usually  prevent  them  from  undertaking 
these  languages  merely  for  the  sake  of  legal  history.  Besides,  the 
study  of  that  history  to-day  needs  special  encouragement ;  we  ought 
to  remove  all  the  actual  obstacles,  even  if  we  think  that  they  ought 
not  to  have  been  obstacles.  The  translations  ought  to  include  at 
least  Brunner  and  Heusler  on  Germanic  law,  Esmein  on  French 
criminal  procedure,  Brissaud  on  French  civil  law  (when  the  work  is 
finished),  Fertile  on  ItaUan  legal  history,  and  Goldschmidt  on  the 
history  of  commercial  law.  It  is  lamentable  to  think  of  those  works 
being  locked  up  from  the  mature  students  of  this  generation.  The 
committee's  task  would  be  in  four  parts:  (a)  to  fix  upon  the  works  to 
be  translated  and  to  secure  the  authors'  consent;  (b)  to  discover 
among  the  younger  men  those  whose  accomplishments  and  tastes 
would  fit  them  for  the  labor  of  translation;  (c)  to  secure  from  the 
universities  and  other  libraries  a  sufficient  number  of  subscriptions 
to  induce  a  publisher  to  undertake  the  series;  (d)  to  adopt  a  uniform 
vocabulary  for  the  translation  of  certain  common  technical  words, 
and  to  keep  a  general  supervision  over  the  process  of  the  translation.^ 
(3)  In  the  third  place,  the  study  of  legal  history  should  be  made 
compulsory  in  law  schools.  The  great  fact  of  experience  under  the 
elective  system  in  law  schools  is  that  with  the  multiplication  and 
expansion  of 'topics  the  subjects  of  history  and  jurisprudence  are 
crowded  out  of  the  usual  voluntary  selection.  The  temptation  of 
the  practical,  as  it  looms  up  directly  ahead  in  the  profession,  is  too 
great  for  the  student.  As  between  particular  advanced  topics  of 
law  —  such  as  mortgages,  commercial  paper,  and  the  like  —  no  one 
of  these  seems  to  deserve  greater  claims  than  any  other;  it  is  rather 
a  question  of  discipline  undergone  than  of  information  acquired. 
But  against  any  one  or  all  of  these,  legal  history  does  have  a  claim. 
Since  the  student  ignores  that  claim,  it  should  be  vindicated  in  his 
behalf  and  regardless  of  his  choice.     History,  says  Montaigne,  is 

'  Since  the  above  was  written,  the  Association  of  American  Law  Schools,  in 
August,  1905,  has  appointed  a  committee  to  consider  these  needs. 


362  HISTORY  OF   COMMON   LAW 

everybody's  subject.  Over  and  above  the  history  of  the  individual 
doctrines  studied  in  the  several  courses,  there  ought  to  be  a  course  of 
general  reading.  Our  mistake  hitherto  seems  to  have  been  in  sup- 
posing that  this  must  indispensably  involve  a  course  of  lectures;  and 
few  of  us  have  cared  to  assume  the  cathedra  of  legal  history.  But 
the  essential  thing  is  merely  that  the  student  should  gain  the  broad- 
ened view  by  a  course  of  reading.  "Reading  maketh  a  full  man." 
This  part  of  the  education  can  be  sufficiently  tested  by  an  examin- 
ation. This  course  of  historical  reading  should  include  something 
interesting  in  the  biographies  and  traditions  of  bench  and  bar. 
The  Duke  of  Marlborough  said  that  he  learned  all  the  history  he  ever 
knew  out  of  Shakespeare's  historical  plays;  certainly  our  modern 
legal  history  can  best  be  studied  in  the  careers  of  Hardwicke,  Mans- 
field, Eldon,  Erskine,  Denman,  Brougham,  Campbell,  Webster,  and 
Choate.  The  course,  moreover,  should  not  be  seriously  attempted 
until  the  second  and  third  years.  John  Morley  has  preached  to  us  the 
natural  method  of  learning  history  backward.  "I  want  to  know," 
he  says,  "  what  men  did  in  the  thirteenth  century,  not  out  of  anti- 
quarian curiosity,  but  because  the  thirteenth  century  is  at  the  root  of 
what  men  think  and  do  in  the  nineteenth.  It  is  the  present  that  we 
seek  to  understand  and  to  explain."  Until  the  student  has  come  into 
the  possession  of  some  of  the  technicalities  of  trover  and  ejectment, 
and  has  read  some  of  the  opinions  of  Mansfield  and  Eldon,  it  is  use- 
less to  expect  him  to  take  a  living  interest  in  the  details  of  history. 
Such  a  course  can  be  constructed  on  something  like  the  following 
lines:  First  Year:  Selected  chapters  of  Blackstone's  Commentaries 
(for  acquiring  the  orthodox  traditions);  R.  K.  Wilson's  History 
of  Modern  English  Law.  Second  Year:  (a)  Pollock  &  Maitland's 
History  of  English  Law,  volume  1;  and  (b)  Campbell's  Lives  of  the 
Chancellors,  beginning  with  Lord  Hard^dcke.  Extra  and  optional 
course,  to  count  for  additional  credit  under  the  elective  system: 
(a)  Pollock  &  Maitland's  History  of  the  English  Law,  volume  2,  or 
selected  essays  by  Ames  and  others;  (b)  any  three  of  the  following: 
Campbell's  Lives  of  the  Chancellors,  from  Sir  Thomas  More  to  Lord 
Hardwicke;  Campbell's  Lives  of  the  Chief  Jitstices,  from  Lord  Holt; 
Campbell's  Autobiography;  Twiss's  Life  of  Lord  Eldon;  Arnould's 
Life  of  Lord  Denman;  Brown's  Life  of  Rufus  Choate.  Third  Year 
(here  branching  from  legal  history  to  broadening  subjects  of  juris- 
prudence) :  A  course  of  reading  (of  one  or  two  volumes)  in  specified 
books  on  anyone  of  the  following  subjects:  General  jurisprudence, 
Roman  law,  international  law,  Germanic  legal  history.  Some- 
thing of  this  sort  must  surely  be  done  if  the  newer  generation  are 
to  be  expected  to  know  and  to  use  the  results  achieved  by  the 
older  scholars. 


THE  PROBLEMS   OF  TO-DAY  363 

III.  Our  third  and  last  general  inquiry  is:  What  are  the  chief 
lessons  and  warnings  for  the  future  tendencies  of  our  legal  history? 
This  does  not  signify  an  inquiry  into  the  changes  which  are  likely  to 
be  suffered  or  ought  to  be  made  in  particular  doctrines  or  rules. 
That  is  a  question  of  legislative  policy.  The  question  is  this :  Having 
in  view  the  mode  of  development  of  our  law  in  the  past,  are  the 
general  conditions  which  have  surrounded  that  development  likely 
to  remain,  and,  if  not,  in  what  respect?  Will  the  persons  and  their 
methods  remain  the  same,  so  that  we  may  expect  the  mould  and 
form  to  remain?  It  is  seen,  for  example,  that  when  English  law  was 
transferred  to  American  soil  all  the  distinctive  mechanics  of  develop- 
ment continued.  The  legislator  and  the  judge,  the  treatise  and  the 
report,  the  bench  and  the  bar,  took  practically  the  same  part  as 
before.  Only  the  distinction  between  constitution  and  statute 
was  novel,  and  the  abolition  of  distinction  between  counsel  and 
attorney.  Except,  therefore,  in  the  constitutional  field,  it  has 
resulted  that  we  may  to-day  discuss  contemporary  American  law  in 
practically  the  same  terms  in  which  Lord  Holt  and  Sir  Edward  Coke 
discussed  it.  Does  the  future  have  any  promises  or  omens  for  us? 
Two  features  seem  clearly  marked. 

(1)  An  omen  is  certainly  visible  in  the  inordinate  multiplication 
of  printed  reports  of  cases.  The  threat  to  the  future  of  our  law  is 
veritably  appalling.  We  are  likely  to  be  overwhelmed  by  them.  The 
danger  is  that  in  trying  to  remedy  the  evil,  when  it  bursts  upon  us, 
we  shall  take  some  sudden  and  ill-judged  measure  of  defense.  Per- 
haps, like  Justinian  or  Napoleon,  we  shall  commit  the  futile  error  of 
forbidding  all  rulings  of  courts  to  be  cited  as  precedents.  Perhaps, 
like  the  stag  fleeing  from  his  pursuers  and  blindly  thrusting  his  head 
into  the  bush,  we  shall  decline  to  print  a  portion  of  the  opinions  which 
we  write  (as  some  courts  now  do)  and  then  feign  not  to  see  the  private 
editions  which  the  lawyers  are  nevertheless  using.  But  in  any  case 
we  must  not  abandon  the  publication  of  opinions.  Abolish  reports, 
said  Edmund  Burke,  and  you  abolish  the  law  of  England.  The  essential 
thing  is  not  this  or  that  remedy,  but  the  clear  conscious  vision  of  the 
momentous  danger  that  is  approaching.  It  will  swamp  our  law;  it 
will  turn  it  into  a  formless  mass.  The  mere  bulk  will  be  such  as  to 
transform  our  whole  professional  life  and  legal  methods,  in  some 
fashion  which  is  as  yet  unforeseen,  but  is  certain  to  be  undesirable. 
The  most  feasible  and  effective  remedy  is  for  the  judges  to  refrain 
from  writing  opinions  of  any  sort  except  in  that  small  proportion 
of  cases  which  seem  to  require  them. 

(2)  The  second  feature  of  the  outlook  is  a  promise  of  encouragement, 
in  that  the  vogue  of  wholesale  codification  has  been  stopped.  This 
has  been  plain  for  a  decade  or  more  past.  With  so  little  of  our  legal 
history  fully  disentangled,  and  with  communities  of  such  diverse 


364  HISTORY   OF   COMMON   LAW 

interests  to  be  served  by  the  national  law,  the  time  for  codification 
of  the  entire  mass  of  law  ought  to  be  far  in  the  future.  But  the  codi- 
fication of  what  is  known  and  settled,  gradually  proceeding  piecemeal 
through  the  mass,  is  a  different,  a  feasible,  and  a  desirable  thing. 
This  is  the  turn  now  being  taken.  Through  the  efforts  of  the  American 
Bar  Association  and  the  State  Commissions  on  Uniformity  of  Legisla- 
tion, a  signal  beginning  has  been  made,  and  the  progress  is  likely  to 
be  as  rapid  as  could  be  expected. 

Except  in  these  two  important  respects,  the  history  of  our  law  in 
the  future  seems  destined  to  develop  by  the  same  methods,  during 
the  next  one  hundred  years,  at  any  rate,  as  during  the  past  three 
centuries. 


SECTION   C  — COMPARATIVE  LAW 


SECTION   C- COMPARATIVE  LAW 


[Hall  14,  September  24,  3  p.  m.] 

Chairman:   Honorable  Jacob  M.  Dickinson,  Chicago. 
Speakers:  Professor  Nobushige  Hozumi,  University  of  Tokio. 
Professor  Alfred  Nbrincx,  University  of  Louvain! 


THE   NEW  JAPANESE   CIVIL   CODE,   AS   MATERIAL  FOR 
THE  STUDY  OF   COMPARATIVE  JURISPRUDENCE 

BY    NOBUSHIGE    HOZUMI 

[Nobushige  Hozxuni,  Professor  of  Law,  Imperial  University,  Tokio,  Japan,  b. 
July  11,  1855,  Uwajima,  Japan.  Senior  Middle  Temple,  London,  scholarship 
in  Common  and  Criminal  Law,  1878-79;  Barrister-at-Law,  Middle  Temple, 
England.  Hogakuhakushi,  LL.D.  1888;  Dean  of  the  Faculty  of  Law,  Univer- 
sity of  Tokio,  1882-87,  1893-95;  member  of  the  House  of  Peers,  1890- 
92;  drafting  member  of  the  Committee  of  Codification,  1893 ;  Chair- 
man of  the  Assembly  of  Doctors  of  Law,  1899 ;  member  Tokio  Academy 

of  Sciences.  Author  of  Ancestor-Worship  and  Japanese  Law  (in  English); 
Treatise  on  Codification;  Treatise  on  Inkyo,  or  Retirement  from  House-headship; 
and  On  the  Custom  of  Goringumi,  or  Five-men's  Guilds  (in  Japanese) ;  was  one  of 
the  three  joint  authors  of  the  Civil  Code  of  Japan.] 

In  responding  to  the  call  of  the  Committee  of  the  Congress  to 
deliver  a  lecture  on  Comparative  Law,  I  have,  for  reasons  which  will 
not  be  far  to  seek,  taken  the  new  Japanese  Civil  Code  as  the  subject 
of  my  discourse.  If,  at  the  outset,  I  may  be  allowed  to  use  a  para- 
doxical expression  in  characterizing  that  law-book,  I  should  say  that 
"  the  East  and  the  West,  the  Past  and  the  Present,  meet  in  the  new 
Japanese  Civil  Code."  I  mean  that  the  codification  of  private  law 
in  Japan  was  the  result  of  the  great  political  and  social  revolution 
which  followed  the  opening  of  the  country  and  the  introduction  of 
Western  ideas;  so  that  the  Code  embodies  in  itself  both  archaic 
and  modem  elements  on  the  one  hand,  and  Oriental  and  Occidental 
elements  on  the  other.  It  is,  so  to  speak,  a  connecting  link  between 
the  Past  and  the  Present,  between  the  East  and  the  West,  and  stands 
at  the  cross-roads  of  historical  and  comparative  jurisprudence. 
It  is,  on  that  account,  peculiarly  interesting  to  scientific  jurists,  as 
supplying  them  with  materials  which  few  other  systems  can  furnish. 
It  will  be  my  endeavor,  in  this  lecture,  to  show  the  effect  which  the 
contact  of  the  Western  civilization  with  that  of  the  East  has  pro- 
duced on  the  civil  law  of  the  country,  thereby  illustrating  some  of 
the  leading  principles  of  the  evolution  of  law  by  reference  to  the 
rules  of  the  Code.    The  scope  of  my  lecture  being  so  wide,  and  the 


368  COMPARATIVE  LAW 

time  for  its  delivery  being  limited,  I  shall  confine  myself  to  those 
characteristic  features  of  the  code  which  are  not  usually  found  in 
Occidental  jurisprudence. 

I.  Causes  of  the  Codification 

In  order  to  set  forth  the  characteristics  of  the  Japanese  Civil 
Code,  it  will  be  useful,  first  of  all,  briefly  to  explain  the  causes  which 
led  to  the  codification  and  give  a  short  sketch  of  the  history  of  its 
compilation.  The  causes  which  led  to  the  reform  and  codification  of 
the  civil  law  are  principally  two. 

The  first  is  to  be  found  in  the  great  social  and  political  changes 
which  have  taken  place  since  the  opening  of  the  country  to  foreign 
intercourse,  especially  since  the  restoration  of  the  Emperor  to 
actual  power  in  1868.  It  was  just  half  a  century  ago  that  Commo- 
dore Perry  knocked  at  our  doors  to  open  the  country  to  foreign  trade. 
Aroused  from  the  deep  slumber  of  centuries,  we  rubbed  our  eyes, 
and  saw  Western  civilization  confronting  us,  but  it  was  some  time 
before  we  were  wide  awake,  and  realized  the  advantage  of  introducing 
it  into  our  country. 

In  a  country  which  had  remained  entirely  secluded  for  centuries 
from  the  rest  of  the  world,  it  was  quite  natural  that  distrust,  which 
in  many  cases  grew  to  be  hatred,  of  foreigners  should  at  first  have 
existed  among  the  mass  of  the  people;  and  that  the  cry  of  "  jo-i, "  or 
"the  expulsion  of  foreigners,"  should  have  been  raised  among  them. 
Many  far-sighted  statesmen  and  scholars,  however,  clearly  saw  the 
necessity  of  introducing  Western  civilization  and  of  adopting  what- 
ever seemed  conducive  to  the  intellectual  or  material  progress  of 
the  country,  in  order  that  Japan  might  become  a  member  of  the 
family  of  nations.  There  were  others,  who,  while  understanding 
very  well  the  necessity  of  introducing  Western  civilization,  joined 
the  anti-foreign  party,  in  order  to  hasten  the  overthrow  of  the  Sho- 
gunate  Government,  for  the  expressions  "  Sonno-joi, "  or  "  Loyalty  to 
the  Emperor,  and  the  expulsion  of  foreigners,"  although  they  had 
no  necessary  connection  with  one  another,  were  at  that  time  adopted 
as  watchwords  by  the  party  of  political  reform,  in  order  to  set  the 
mass  of  the  people  against  the  Shogun's  Government.  But  as  soon 
as  their  object  was  attained,  and  the  present  Emperor  was  restored 
to  real  power,  they  threw  off  the  mask  and  kept  only  the  former 
half  of  their  watchword,  "Sonno, "  or  "Loyalty  to  the  Emperor." 

The  first  act  of  the  Emperor,  on  ascending  the  throne, was  to  enun- 
ciate the  fundamental  principles  of  his  government  in  the  form  of  a 
solemn  oath,  which  has  since  then  been  known  as  "  the  Five  Articles 
of  the  Imperial  Oath."  The  Emperor  declared  in  this  oath, 
(1)  That   deliberative   assemblies   should   be  established,  and   all 
.measures  of  government  should  be  decided  by  public  opinion. 


JAPANESE   CIVIL   CODE  369 

(2)  That  all  classes,  high  and  low,  should  unite  in  vigorously  carry- 
ing out  the  plan  of  the  government. 

(3)  Officials,  civil  and  military,  and  all  common  people  should, 
as  far  as  possible,  be  allowed  to  fulfill  their  just  desires,  so  that 
there  might  not  be  any  discontent  among  them. 

(4)  Uncivilized  customs  of  former  times  should  be  broken  through, 
and  everything  should  be  based  upon  the  just  and  equitable 
principle  of  nature. 

(5)  That  knowledge  should  he  sought  for  throughout  the  world,  so  that 
the  welfare  of  the  Empire  might  be  promoted. 

This  oath  has  been  made  the  basis  of  our  national  policy.  How 
well  the  Emperor  kept  his  oath,  and  how  unswervingly  his  govern- 
ment and  his  people  have  followed  the  wish  expressed  by  their 
sovereign,  is  shown  by  the  subsequent  events  of  our  history. 

The  feudal  system  was  abolished,  and  all  the  daimios  or  feudal 
lords  voluntarily  surrendered  their  fiefs  to  the  Emperor,  together 
with  their  powers  to  make  laws,  issue  paper  currency,  and  exercise 
both  civil  and  criminal  jurisdiction  within  their  dominions.  The 
four  hereditary  classes  of  the  people,  namely,  the  samurai  or  sol- 
diers, farmers,  artisans,  and  merchants,  were  abolished,  and  all  could 
freely  choose  their  own  profession  or  calling.  Officials  were  no 
longer  appointed  on  account  of  birth,  as  was  formerly  the  case, 
but  on  account  of  personal  merits,  and  even  the  lowest  born  could 
aspire  to  become  the  highest  official  of  the  state.  The  family 
system  was,  as  I  shall  show  presently,  gradually  weakened,  so 
that  the  individual  began  to  take  the  place  of  the  family  as  the 
unit  of  society.  Schools  for  both  sexes  have  been  established  in 
all  parts  of  the  empire,  which  are  open  to  all  classes  without  the 
least  distinction.  Higher  education  is  no  longer  the  monopoly 
of  the  samurai  and  the  clergy.  Students  and  officials  have  been 
yearly  sent  to  Europe  and  America,  to  study  different  branches 
of  art  and  science,  or  to  investigate  and  report  upon  the  methods 
and  resources  of  Western  civilization.  Christianity,  which  had 
been  very  strictly  forbidden  during  the  Tokugawa  Shogunate, 
was  gradually  tolerated  under  the  new  government  of  the  Emperor, 
until  at  last  freedom  of  religious  belief  and  worship  was  secured  by 
article  28  of  the  constitution  promulgated  in  1889.  The  introduction 
of  steamships,  railroads,  electric  telegraphs,  etc.,  completely  changed 
the  means  of  communication  and  travehng  both  on  land  and  sea. 
The  opening  of  foreign  trade  and  the  changes  in  commerce  and 
industry  at  home,  by  the  estabhshment  of  banking  and  other  com- 
mercial firms  and  factories  in  different  parts  of  the  country,  brought 
about  great  economical  revolutions  among  the  people.  The  Imperial 
Household  abolished  the  old  ceremonial  costumes,  and  adopted 
European  dress  for  ceremonial  occasions  both  for  men  and  women. 


370  COMPARATIVE  LAW 

The  men  cut  off  their  topknots  and  had  their  hair  dressed  in  Western 
fashion;  they  discarded  their  loose  native  dress  and  began  to  wear 
tight  practical  European  dress;  they  now  build  their  government 
offices,  schools,  and  other  public  buildings  in  European  style;  they 
began  to  eat  beef,  the  partaking  of  which  had  been  regarded  as 
something  sacrilegious.  It  is  needless  to  say  that  these  political, 
economical,  and  social  revolutions,  which  extended  to  every  depart- 
ment of  life,  occasioned  the  necessity  for  corresponding  reforms  in 
the  laws  of  the  country,  which  could  not  be  met  by  fragmentary 
legislation.  Sweeping  legislation  by  way  of  codification  was  the  only 
way  of  keeping  up  with  the  rapid  strides  which  Japan  had  taken 
during  the  past  three  decades. 

The  second  and  more  immediate  cause  of  the  codification  of  the 
civil  law  was  the  earnest  desire  on  the  part  of  the  Japanese  people 
to  put  an  end  to  the  existence  of  the  extra-territorial  jurisdiction 
which  had  been  granted  by  earlier  treaties  to  the  sixteen  Treaty  Powers 
of  Europe  and  America,  and  to  resume  the  civil  and  criminal  juris- 
diction over  the  subjects  and  citizens  of  the  Treaty  Powers,  residing 
or  traveling  in  the  country.  At  the  time  that  we  first  entered  into 
commercial  treaties  with  Western  Powers,  it  was  quite  natural  and 
reasonable  that  they  should  demand  the  reservation  to  themselves 
of  jurisdiction  over  their  own  respective  subjects  and  citizens.  This 
was  indeed  necessitated  by  the  great  difference  between  their  own 
laws  and  institutions  and  those  of  Japan,  while  the  habits  and  customs 
of  the  people  were  also  quite  unlike.  We  saw  the  necessity  and  justice 
of  acceding  to  their  demand,  but  at  the  same  time  felt  that  the 
existence  of  such  a  legal  anomaly  was  a  disgrace  to  the  country,  and 
wholly  incompatible  with  that  scrupulous  regard  for  the  integrity 
of  territorial  sovereignty  which  ought  to  characterize  the  intercourse 
of  independent  friendly  nations.  So  from  an  early  date  in  the  present 
reign,  attempts  were  repeatedly  made  to  revise  the  treaties  and 
expunge  from  them  the  abominable  extra-territorial  clause.  But 
every  time  we  were  met  by  the  objection  that  our  laws  were  in- 
complete. Although  as  a  matter  of  principle,  we  did  not  admit  the 
justice  of  the  foreigners'  objection  to  obeying  the  laws  of  the  country 
to  which  they  chose  to  resort,  we  were  obliged,  in  fairness,  to  re- 
cognize the  reasonableness  of  their  objections. 

After  many  years  of  difficult  diplomatic  negotiations,  it  was  at 
last  agreed  that  the  treaties  should  be  revised  and  the  extra-terri- 
toriality  should  be  abolished;  and,  at  the  same  time,  the  Japanese 
Government  undertook  to  frame  codes  of  laws  and  put  them  in 
operation  before  the  new  treaties  should  go  into  effect. 

The  above-mentioned  two  causes,  one  internal  and  the  other 
external,  combined  to  make  the  work  of  codification  one  of  the 
most  urgent  necessities  of  the  time.    As  a  preliminary  step  to  the 


JAPANESE   CIVIL   CODE  371 

work  of  codification,  a  Bureau  for  the  Investigation  of  Institutions 
was  established  in  the  third  year  of  Meiji  (1870),  and  one  of  the 
fruits  of  the  labor  of  that  bureau  was  the  translation  of  the  French 
Codes.  This  translation  afforded  the  knowledge-thirsty  Japanese  ideas 
of  Western  laws  for  the  first  time,  and  had  an  immense  influence 
upon  subsequent  legislation  and  judicial  decisions  in  the  courts  of  law. 
In  1875  a  Committee  for  the  Compilation  of  the  Civil  Code  was 
appointed  for  the  first  time.  In  1878  a  draft  was  submitted  by  this 
committee  to  the  Government.  This  draft  was  a  close  imitation  of 
the  French  Civil  Code,  both  in  its  arrangements  and  in  its  content 
and  was  not  adopted  by  the  Government.  In  1880  Professor  Bois- 
sonade,  an  eminent  French  jurist,  who  was  then  a  legal  adviser  to 
the  Japanese  Government,  was  asked  to  prepare  a  new  draft,  and  in 
the  next  year,  a  Bureau  for  the  Codification  of  the  Civil  Law  was 
established,  to  which  Professor  Boissonade's  draft  was  submitted  for 
deliberation.  The  bureau  was  abolished  in  1886,  and  a  Committee 
for  the  Investigation  of  Law  was  appointed,  composed  of  the  members 
of  the  Genroin  or  the  Senate  and  of  the  Bench,  vnth.  Count  Yamada, 
the  Minister  of  Justice,  at  its  head.  This  committee  made  its  report  in 
1888,  and  the  draft  was  submitted  to  the  deliberation  of  the  Senate, 
and  was  adopted  by  that  Council.  On  the  27th  of  March,  1890,  under 
Law  no.  28,  those  parts  of  the  Code  which  were  drafted  by  Professor 
Boissonade,  that  is,  book  ii,  relating  to  '' Property  in  General," 
book  in,  relating  to  the  "Means  of  Acquiring  Property,"  book  iv, 
"Security  of  Rights  in  personam,"  and  book  v,  relating  to  "Evi- 
dence," were  published.  Those  parts  which  were  prepared  by 
Japanese  jurists,  namely,  book  i,  relating  to  "Persons,"  and  part 
of  book  III,  relating  to  "Succession,"  were  published  on  the  16th 
of  October  of  the  same  year,  and  the  whole  code  was  to  go  into 
operation  from  the  1st  of  January,  1893. 

Thus  after  the  arduous  toil  of  fifteen  years,  Japan  possessed  a  code 
of  private  law  for  the  first  time  in  her  history.  It  was  quite  natural 
that  the  Code  should  become  a  topic  of  earnest  consideration  for  all 
educated  classes  of  the  people.  Especially  among  lawyers  and  poli- 
ticians, a  violent  controversy  arose  regarding  the  merits  of  the  new 
code.  Those  jurists  who  had  studied  English  law  in  the  Tokio 
University  or  in  England  or  America  first  raised  their  voices  against 
the  Code  and  demanded  the  postponement  of  the  date  of  its  going 
into  operation,  with  a  view  to  its  complete  revision.  The  French 
section  of  Japanese  lawyers,  on  the  other  hand,  supported  the  Code 
and  insisted  upon  the  necessity  of  its  going  into  operation  at  the  date 
originally  appointed.  The  German  section  of  jurists,  whose  number 
was  at  that  time  comparatively  small,  was  divided  into  two  parties, 
some  siding  with  the  one,  and  others  joining  the  other.  Japanese 
lawyers  were  thus  divided  into  two  hostile  camps,  and  the  lively 


372  COMPARATIVE  LAW 

discussion  which  arose  among  them  is  known  as  the  "  Postponement 
Campaign."  The  arguments  pro  and  con  put  forward  for  the  post- 
ponement and  revision  of  the  Code  were  many  and  were  of  varying 
importance.  To  outsiders  the  campaign  may  have  seemed  Uke  a 
sectarian  conflict  between  the  English  and  French  groups  of  Japanese 
lawyers.  But  this  struggle  is  eminently  interesting  to  scientific 
observers  of  the  general  history  of  law,  for  it  was,  in  reality,  a  contest 
of  the  historical  school  with  the  school  of  natural  law,  resembling 
in  many  respects  the  famous  controversy  between  Savigny  and 
Thibaut  in  the  beginning  of  the  same  century.  This  question  con- 
tained an  important  issue,  as  to  which  theory  should  have  a  pre- 
dominant influence  over  the  jurisprudence  and  legislation  of  the 
country. 

In  order  to  explain  this  interesting  event  in  our  legal  history, 
1  must  for  a  moment  stop  to  give  an  account  of  the  state  of  legal 
education  in  Japan  at  that  time.  English  law  had  been  taught  in  the 
Imperial  University  of  Tokio  since  1874  by  English,  American,  and 
Japanese  teachers,  and  also  in  other  law  schools,  and  a  great  num- 
ber of  the  graduates  had  by  that  time  already  filled  important 
positions  on  the  Bench  and  at  the  Bar,  as  well  as  in  other  places,  both 
in  and  out  of  the  Government.  They  were  all  taught  the  doctrines 
of  Bentham,  Austin,  and  Maine,  and  most  of  them  belonged  to  the 
school  of  positive  law.  On  the  other  hand,  there  was  a  law  school 
attached  to  the  Department  of  Justice,  in  which  French  law  was 
taught  by  Professor  Boissonade  and  other  French  and  native  teachers. 
There  were  also  two  or  three  private  law  schools  in  which  French  law 
was  taught.  The  graduates  of  these  schools,  who  also  filled  important 
positions,  had  been  taught  the  doctrines  of  natural  law.  It  was 
quite  natural  that  the  doctrines  which  lawyers  had  imbibed  in  their 
early  days  of  studentship  should  have  strongly  influenced  their  views 
as  to  legislation  in  their  maturer  days.  And  thus  arose  two  opposite 
schools  among  the  lawyers  of  Japan.  In  1887,  just  three  years  before 
the  publication  of  the  Civil  Code,  the  Imperial  University  made  a  re- 
form in  the  programme  of  the  College  of  Law.  The  French  Law  School 
of  the  Department  of  Justice  was  transferred  to  the  University, 
and  at  the  same  time  a  German  Law  Section  was  newly  established, 
so  that  there  came  to  be  three  sections  in  the  College  of  Law,  besides 
a  fourth  which  is  devoted  to  political  science.  This  tripartite  division 
in  the  University  law  education  could  not  fail  to  produce  an  enduring 
effect  on  the  subsequent  legislation  of  the  country.  The  Civil  Code 
had  become  law  before  the  constitution  came  into  forcq  in  1890, 
and  the  question  of  the  postponement  of  its  operation  had  to  be 
decided  in  the  Imperial  Diet.  Accordingly  a  bill  was  introduced 
at  the  session  of  1892  in  the  House  of  Representatives  to  postpone 
the  operation  of  the  Code  with  a  view  to  its  revision.    After  several 


JAPANESE  CIVIL  CODE  373 

warm  debates,  the  bill  was  passed  by  both  Houses  of  the  Imperial 
/  Diet  and  the  operation  of  the  Code  was  postponed  by  Law  no.  8 
until  the  31st  of  December,  1896.  Thus  the  so-called  "Postpone- 
ment Campaign"  resulted  in  the  victory  of  the  "Postponement 
Party";  and  in  the  following  j^ear  a  Codification  Committee  was 
established  by  an  Imperial  Edict.  The  constitution  of  this  committee 
affords  a  very  important  clue  for  understanding  the  character  of  the 
new  code.  The  committee,  with  Marquis  Ito,  then  Prime  Minister, 
as  its  president,  consisted  of  members  of  both  Houses  of  the  Diet, 
professors  of  the  Imperial  University,  members  of  the  Bench  and  the 
Bar,  with  other  eminent  jurists  and  leading  representatives  of  com- 
merce and  industry.  The  number  of  the  members  varied  from  time 
to  time,  but  throughout,  care  had  been  taken  in  the  appointment 
of  members  to  represent  every  interest  in  society  and  also  to  repre- 
sent English,  French,  and  German  schools  of  Japanese  lawyers. 
The  "Postponement  Campaign"  was  very  fierce  while  it  lasted, 
but  when  the  question  was  once  settled,  both  parties  threw  off  their 
animosity  and  joined  hands  in  the  work  of  giving  the  nation  a  code 
which  would  meet  the  exigencies  of  the  time.  The  appointment  of 
the  three  special  members  to  prepare  the  draft  also  shows  a  concilia- 
tory spirit  on  all  sides.  Professors  Tomii,  Ume,  and  myself  were 
appointed  to  prepare  the  original  draft  which  was  to  be  submitted 
to  the  deliberation  of  the  committee.  Professor  Tomii,  although  he 
had  studied  law  in  Paris  and  is  docteur  en  droit,  and  thus  belonged 
to  the  French  school,  sided  with  the  "Postponement  Party,"  and 
not  only  formed  a  remarkable  exception  among  his  comrades,  but 
was  one  of  the  stanch  advocates  of  postponement  and  revision. 
Professor  Ume,  who  had  studied  law  in  Lyons  and  is  also  docteur  en 
droit,  was  one  of  the  champions  of  the  "Anti-Postponement  Party." 
I  myself  studied  English  law  in  the  Inns  of  Court  in  London  and  am 
a  member  of  the  English  Bar;  and  I  belonged  to  the  "  Postponement 
Party."  Both  Professor  Ume  and  I  also  studied  law  in  the  University 
of  Berlin,  after  we  had  finished  our  courses  in  France  and  England 
respectively.  Thus  it  will  be  seen  that  two  out  of  the  three  framers 
of  the  Code  represented  the  French  section,  but  one  of  them  be- 
longed to  the  "  Postponement  Party."  While  two  belonged  to  the 
French  and  one  to  the  English  school,  two  of  them  had  studied 
German  law. 

The  constitution  of  the  committee,  especially  that  of  the  Drafting 
Committee,  made  it  clear  that  they  could  not  agree  to  take  the  law 
of  any  one  country  as  an  exclusive  model  upon  which  to  frame  the 
new  code.  Professor  Boissonade's  code  was  principally  based  upon 
the  French  Civil  Code,  but  the  framers  of  the  revised  code  agreed 
to  collect  the  codes,  statutes,  and  judicial  reports  of  all  civiUzed 
countries  which  existed  in  the  English,  French,  German,  or  Italian 


374  COMPARATIVE  LAW  • 

languages,  besides  international  treaties  which  have  reference  to  the 
rules  of  private  law.  They  accordingly  collected  more  than  thirtjf 
civil  codes,  including  many  drafts,  such  as  the  draft  of  the  Civil 
Code  of  New  York,  the  draft  of  the  German  Code,  the  drafts  of  the 
Belgian  Code,  besides  other  codes,  statutes,  reports,  and  treaties,  and 
comparing  the  rules  or  principles  which  exist  in  different  countries, 
adopted  whatever  seemed  to  be  best  suited  to  the  requirements 
of  the  country.  In  the  original  draft  which  was  submitted  to  the 
deliberation  of  the  committee,  an  explanation  was  attached  to  each 
article,  stating  the  reasons  for  the  adoption  of  the  rule.  The  corre- 
sponding articles  or  rules  which  exist  in  other  countries,  as  well  as 
rules,  precedents,  and  customs  in  our  own  country,  were  also  cited 
for  the  consideration  of  the  committee.  This  method  of  preparing 
the  draft  gave  a  characteristic  feature  to  the  new  code.  The  Japanese 
Civil  Code  may  be  said  to  be  a  fruit  of  comparative  jurisprudence. 
At  first  sight,  it  may  appear  that  the  new  code  was  very  closely 
modeled  upon  the  new  German  Civil  Code;  and  I  have  very  often 
read  statements  to  that  effect.  It  is  true  that  the  first  and  second 
draft  of  the  German  Code  furnished  very  valuable  material  to  the 
drafting  committee  and  had  a  great  influence  upon  the  deliberations 
of  the  committee.  But  on  close  examination  of  the  principles  and 
rules  adopted  in  the  Code,  it  mil  appear  that  they  gathered  materials 
from  all  parts  of  the  civilized  world  and  freely  adopted  rules  or 
principles  from  the  laws  of  any  country,  whenever  they  saw  the 
advantage  of  doing  so.  In  some  parts,  rules  were  adopted  from  the 
French  Civil  Code;  in  others,  the  principles  of  English  common  law 
were  followed;  in  others,  again,  such  laws  as  the  Swiss  Federal  Code 
of  Obligations  of  1881,  the  new  Spanish  Civil  Code  of  1889,  the 
Property  Code  of  Montenegro,  Indian  Succession  and  Contract  Acts, 
or  the  Civil  Codes  of  Louisiana,  Lower  Canada,  or  the  South  American 
republics,  or  the  revised  Civil  Code  of  New  York,  and  the  hke  gave 
material  to  the  framers  of  the  Code.  In  January,  1896,  the  report  of 
the  Committee  on  book  i,  "General  Provisions,"  book  ii,  "Rights 
in  rem, "  and  book  iii,  "  Rights  in  personam, "  was  submitted  to  the 
Imperial  Diet  and  was  adopted  with  only  a  few  unimportant  modi- 
fications. In  April  of  the  same  year,  these  three  books  were  pro- 
mulgated as  Law  no.  89.  The  remaining  two  books  on  "Family" 
and  "Succession"  were  submitted  to  the  Imperial  Diet  in  May,  1898, 
and  adopted  by  both  Houses  with  only  slight  modifications,  and  were 
promulgated  as  Law  no.  90  in  June;  and  the  whole  Code  came  into 
force  on  the  16th  of  July,  1898. 

The  foregoing  sketch,  brief  as  it  is,  of  the  history  of  the  codification 
of  the  civil  law  will  be  sufficient  to  show  that  the  new  Japanese  Ci^•il 
Code  is  the  result  of  the  comparative  study  of  laws,  and  offers  in  its 
turn  valuable  materials  for  the  study  of  comparative  jurisprudence. 


•JAPANESE  CIVIL  CODE  375 

II.  Objects  of  the  Codification 

I  think  it  may  be  laid  down  as  a  general  rule  regarding  the  evolu- 
tion of  law,  that  a  comprehensive  legislation  generally  follows  a  great 
social  revolution.  If  laws  are  social  phenomena,  it  is  quite  natural 
that  social  changes  should  always  bring  with  them  corresponding 
changes  in  the  laws  of  the  country.  The  legal  history  of  all  nations, 
either  ancient  or  modern,  shows  that  the  objects  sought  to  be  ob- 
tained by  codification  fall  under  one  of  the  following  four  heads, 
namely,  pacification,  innovation,  unification,  and  simplification. 

(1)  Sometimes  codification  takes  place  after  a  great  social  dis- 
turbance in  order  to  restore  peace  and  maintain  order  by  means 
of  comprehensive  legislation.  This  was  true  of  the  ancient  codes 
of  Draco  and  Solon  in  Greece,  the  Law  of  Twelve  Tables  in 
Rome,  and  the  codifications  in  China  since  the  Han  Dynasty, 
where  it  was  customary  for  the  founder  of  every  dynasty  to 
publish  a  new  code  of  laws  after  he  had  gained  the  imperial 
power  by  force  of  arms.  In  Japan  the  codes  of  the  Hojo  and 
the  Tokugawa  belong  to  this  class. 

(2)  Laws  are  often  codified  either  to  bring  about  a  social  reform,  or  to 
adjust  the  law  to  the  requirements  of  the  new  state  of  things  which 
has  been  brought  about  by  social  reform.  To  this  class  belong 
most  of  the  codes  which  have  been  promulgated  in  Japan  since 
the  Restoration  of  1868. 

(3)  Very  often  codification  takes  place  with  a  view  to  the  unification 
of  different  local  laws  and  customs,  so  that  the  country  may  be 
governed  by  a  uniform  code  of  laws.  One  of  the  objects  of  the 
Code  Napoleon,  the  Italian  Civil  Code  of  1865,  and  the  new- 
German  Imperial  Codes  was,  in  each  case,  the  unification  of  the 
laws  of  the  country.  It  was  the  principal  object  of  the  first 
Japanese  Criminal  Code  of  1870,  which  was  published  soon  after 
the  Restoration,  to  establish  unity  in  criminal  law  throughout 
the  empire,  by  abolishing  the  particular  laws  which  existed 
within  the  jurisdictions  of  the  daimios. 

(4)  Simplification  of  law  by  means  of  logical  arrangement  or  con- 
solidation of  legal  rules  constitutes  the  most  usual  motive  for 
codification  in  modern  states. 

Now  the  majority  of  codifications,  except  sometimes  those  com- 
ing under  the  fourth  class  just  mentioned,  take  place  after  great 
political  or  social  revolutions,  in  consequence  of  which  pacification, 
innovation,  unification,  or  simplification  becomes  necessary.  The 
history  of  codification  in  Japan  amply  exemplifies  the  above  state- 
ment. The  promulgation  of  the  Taiho  Code  of  702  a.  d.  was  the 
result  of  the  great  political  and  social  revolution,  which  followed 


376  COMPARATIVE   LAW 

the  introduction  of  Chinese  civiUzation  into  the  country.  The  next 
great  codification,  the  framing  of  the  Joyei  Shikimoku  in  1232  a.  d. 
under  the  Hojo  Regency,  was  necessitated  by  the  great  pohtical  and 
social  changes  which  had  taken  place  since  the  establishment  of 
the  feudal  system  under  the  military  government  of  the  Shoguns. 
The  new  Japanese  Civil  Code  is,  as  I  have  explained  above,  the 
result  of  the  revolution  which  followed  the  opening  of  the  country  to 
foreign  intercourse.  Thus,  each  of  the  three  great  epochs  in  Japanese 
history,  the  introduction  of  Chinese  civilization,  the  establishment  of 
feudalism,  and  the  introduction  of  Western  civilization,  has  been 
followed  by  codification.  The  chief  object  of  the  Taiho  Code,  belong- 
ing to  the  first  period,  was  innovation;  that  of  the  Joyei  Shikimoku, 
belonging  to  the  second  period,  was  pacification;  while  the  framing 
of  the  new  Civil  Code  had  for  its  objects  innovation  and  unification 
as  well  as  simplification. 

III.  Methods  of  Comparative  Jurisprudence 

Looked  at  from  another  point  of  view,  the  new  Japanese  Civil 
Code  may  be  taken  as  an  illustration  of  the  effect  which  the  contact 
of  Western  with  Eastern  civilization  has  produced  on  the  laws  and 
institutions  of  the  country.  In  this  respect  I  must  first  say  a  few 
words  as  to  the  methods  of  comparative  jurisprudence.  Hitherto 
there  have  been  three  methods  of  comparison  in  vogue.  One  of  them 
takes  the  law  of  a  particular  state  as  the  unit  of  comparison,  and 
comparing  with  it  the  laws  of  different  states,  finds  similarities  and 
divergencies  among  them,  and  deduces  from  them  certain  principles 
of  law.  This  is  the  method  generally  adopted  by  jurists.  In  France, 
for  instance,  where  comparative  law  is  studied  with  greatest  zeal, 
valuable  materials  for  this  method  of  investigation  are  furnished  by 
the  publications  of  the  laws  of  different  countries  in  the  Bulletin 
and  Annvmre  of  the  "Society  de  Legislation  Comparee,"  and  by 
the  numerous  translations  of  foreign  codes  by  Foucher,  Antoine 
Saint- Joseph,  Lehr,  Dareste,  Grasserie,  Leve,  Turrel,  Prudhomme, 
Lepell^tier,  and  other  eminent  jurists. 

There  are  others,  who,  perceiving  that  there  are  common  features 
in  the  laws  of  each  race,  take  a  wider  basis  for  their  investigation 
and  make  the  laws  of  particular  races  the  units  of  comparison,  and 
compare  the  one  with  the  other. 

There  are  others,  again,  who  take  a  still  wider  basis,  and  com- 
pare legal  phenomena  of  different  peoples  without  regard  to  nation- 
ality or  race. 

Of  these  three  methods,  the  first  may  compare,  for  instance,  Eng- 
lish law  with  French,  the  second  Germanic  laws  with  Slavonic  laws, 
while  the  third  takes  up,  perhaps,  the  marriage  laws  and  customs 


JAPANESE  CIVIL  CODE  377 

of  European  nations,  American  Indians,  African  negroes,  Australians, 
and  Chinese. 

All  these  three  methods  of  comparison,  which  I  have  mentioned 
above,  are  useful  and  legitimate  methods  of  investigating  the  prin- 
ciples of  law;  and  none  of  them  can  be  rejected  to  the  exclusive 
adoption  of  the  other.  But  I  think  another  method  can  be  added  to 
the  list,  which,  though  not  hitherto  employed,  may  be  very  advan- 
tageously adopted  in  the  investigations  of  general  principles  of  law. 
I  mean  a  method  w^hich  takes  for  the  unit  of  comparison  a  certain 
group  of  laws  having  a  common  lineage  or  descent.  If  we  examine  the 
laws  of  different  countries  which  have  made  a  certain  progress  in 
civiHzation,  w^e  shall  find  that  the  law  of  each  country  consists  of 
two  elements;  namely,  the  indigenous  element  and  the  foreign  element; 
and  except  in  uncivilized  or  barbarous  communities  which  have  no 
intellectual  intercourse  with  other  countries,  instances  are  very  rare 
in  which  the  law  of  any  country  is  found  consisting  exclusively  of 
indigenous  elements.  With  the  progress  of  means  of  communication 
and  the  consequent  increase  of  intercourse  among  different  peoples, 
the  exchange,  not  only  of  material  but  also  of  intellectual  products, 
becomes  greater;  and  in  regard  to  law,  it  may  be  laid  down  as  a 
general  rule  that  the  higher  the  community  stands  in  the  scale  of 
civilization,  the  greater  is  the  proportion  of  the  foreign  to  the  in- 
digenous element.  This  comes  from  what  is  called  the  reception  or 
adoption  of  foreign  laws. 

Now,  when  the  rules  or  principles  of  law  of  one  country  are  adopted 
in  another,  there  arises  a  sort  of  kinship  between  the  laws  of  those 
two  countries.  One  is  descended  from  the  other,  and  the  relationship, 
as  it  were,  of  ancestor  and  descendant  is  created  between  them.  The  old 
law  which  served  as  a  model  or  source  of  the  new  law  may  be  called 
the  "Parental  Law"  or  " Mother-law" in  relation  to  the  new,  which 
stands  in  a  filial  relation  to  the  parental  law. 

The  law  of  one  country  may  be  adopted  in  other  countries  directly, 
as  Roman  law  was  received  in  Germany,  or  indirectly,  that  is,  it  may 
be  first  adopted  in  one  country,  and  then  through  that  country  it 
may  be  received  in  the  third,  as  European  law,  which  has  first  been 
received  in  Japan,  and  is  now  being  introduced  through  her  into  China 
and  Corea.  Or  again,  the  law  of  a  mother  country  may  be  extended 
to  her  colonies  or  dependencies,  as  in  the  case  with  English  law  in 
British  colonies. 

In  this  way,  the  laws  of  all  civilized  countries  may  be  divided 
into  several  groups,  each  comprising  laws  of  many  countries,  but 
having  common  features  and  characteristics  owing  to  their  com- 
mon origin.  These  different  groups  may  be  compared  one  with 
another,  in  order  to  find  out  uniformities  and  divergencies  among 
them,  and  thus  establish  general  principles  of  law.    This  method  of 


378  COMPARATIVE   LAW 

comparative  study  of  law,  which  may  be  called  the  genealogical 
method,  to  distinguish  it  from  the  other  three,  has  the  advantage, 
among  many  others,  of  combining  the  historical  with  the  compar- 
ative method. 

IV.  Great  Families  of  Law 

If,  in  order  to  take  the  genealogical  method  of  comparison, 
we  classify  the  laws  existing  at  present  in  different  parts  of  the 
world,  we  shall  find  that  there  are  at  least  seven  Great  Families 
of  Laws;  namely,  (1)  the  Family  of  Chinese  Law,  (2)  the  Family  of 
Hindu  Law,  (3)  the  Family  of  Mohammedan  Law,  (4)  the  Family 
of  Roman  Law,  (5)  the  Family  of  Germanic  Law,  (6)  the  Family 
of  Slavonic  Law,  and  (7)  the  Family  of  English  Law.  I  have  called 
th6se  groups  the  "Great  Families  of  Laws,"  because  this  classification 
is  not  meant  to  be  exhaustive  or  exclusive.  There  are  many  smaller 
branches  of  law,  not  belonging  to  any  of  the  above  mentioned 
families,  which  are,  none  the  less,  very  important  for  the  genealog- 
ical method  of  comparative  Study,  but  for  the  purpose  of  the  present 
lecture  they  need  not  be  mentioned  here. 

V.  The  Position  of  the  Japanese  Civil  Code  among  Legal  Systems 

of  the  World 

I  have  been  at  some  length  in  explaining  this  method  of  com- 
parative jurisprudence,  in  order  to  show  the  position  of  the  new 
Japanese  Civil  Code  in  the  general  legal  history  of  the  world.  Since 
the  first  introduction  of  Chinese  civilization  into  our  country,  and 
the  consequent  Reform  of  the  Taika  Era  (646  a.  d.),  the  work  of 
which  was  completed  by  the  publication  of  the  famous  Taiho  Code 
in  701  A.  D.,  Japanese  law  has  belonged  to  the  family  of  Chinese  law 
for  more  than  one  thousand  six  hundred  years ;  and  notwithstanding 
many  great  changes  in  the  laws  and  institutions  of  the  country 
which  have  taken  place  since  that  time,  the  basis  of  Japanese  laws 
and  institutions  has  always  been  Chinese  moral  philosophy,  together 
with  the  custom  of  ancestor-worship  and  the  feudal  system. 

The  Criminal  Code  (Shin-ritsu-koryo) ,  which  was  published  in 
1870,  three  years  after  the  Restoration  of  1868,  was  modeled  upon 
the  Chinese  Codes  of  Tang,  Min,  and  Shin  Dynasty,  with  certain 
modifications  suggested  by  old  Japanese  laws.  Only  three  years 
later,  that  code  was  revised,  and  a  new  code  was  published  under  the 
title  of  the  Revised  Criminal  Code  (Kaitei-Ritsurei).  In  the  framing 
of  that  new  code,  some  European  codes,  especially  the  French, 
were  consulted  and  adopted  to  a  certain  extent.  Now  these  two 
codes  mark  the  transition  period  in  the  history  of  Japanese  law. 
The  former  was  the  last  in  the  Chinese,  and  the  latter  the  first  in 


JAPANESE  CIVIL  CODE  379 

the  European,  system  of  legislation.  The  Japanese  law  was  at  that 
time  rapidly  passing  from  the  family  of  Chinese  law  to  the  family  of 
European  laws. 

From  the  beginning  of  the  present  reign,  the  Imperial  Government 
was  very  active  in  making  laws  to  meet  the  exigencies  of  the  new 
state  of  things.  But  finding  that  such  fragmentary  legislation  could 
not  keep  pace  with  the  rapid  progress  of  the  nation  and  meet  the 
requirements  of  the  changing  circumstances,  the  Daijokwan,  or  the 
Great  Council  of  State,  which  was  then  the  supreme  legislature, 
issued  a  law  (no.  103  in  the  eighth  year  of  Meiji,  1875)  which  pro- 
vided in  art.  3,  that  judges  should  decide  civil  cases  according  to  the 
express  provisions  of  written  law,  and  in  cases  where  there  was  no 
such  written  law,  according  to  custom.  In  the  absence  of  both  written 
and  customary  laws,  they  were  to  decide  according  to  the  principles  of 
reason  and  justice.  This  law  flung  wide  open  the  door  for  the  ingress 
of  foreign  law,  and  marks  an  epoch  in  Japanese  legal  history.  Now 
by  this  time,  translations  of  the  French  codes  and  other  law-books 
had  appeared,  and  there  were  some  judges  on  the  Bench,  though 
comparatively  few  at  that  time,  who  had  studied  English  or  French 
law.  The  rapidly  changing  circumstances  of  Japanese  society  brought 
many  cases  before  the  court  for  which  there  were  no  express  rules, 
written  or  customary,  and  the  judges  naturally  sought  to  find  out 
"the  principles  of  reason  and  justice"  in  Western  jurisprudence. 
The  older  members  of  the  Bench,  who  had  not  been  systematically 
taught  in  Western  jurisprudence,  consulted  the  translations  of  the 
French  and  other  European  codes  and  text-books,  while  the  younger 
judges  who  had  received  systematic  legal  education  in  the  univers- 
ities, either  at  home  or  abroad,  and  whose  number  increased  from 
year  to  year,  consulted  Western  codes,  statute-books,  law-reports, 
and  juridical  treatises,  and  freely  applied  the  principles  of  Occidental 
jurisprudence,  which  in  their  opinion  were  conformable  to  reason 
and  justice.  Blackstone,  Kent,  Pollock,  Anson,  Langdell,  Windscheid, 
Dernburg,  Mourlon,  Baudry-Lacantinerie,  and  other  text-books  and 
the  numerous  commentaries  on  European  codes,  statute-books,  and 
law  reports  were  looked  upon  as  repositories  of  just  and  reasonable 
principles  and  supplied  necessary  data  for  their  judgments.  In  this 
manner  Occidental  jurisprudence  entered  our  country,  not  only 
indirectly,  through  the  University  and  other  law  colleges,  but  also 
directly  through  the  Bench  and  the  Bar. 

The  above  law,  bold  as  it  was,  was  meant  to  be  only  a  temporary 
measure  to  supply  the  immediate  wants  of  the  changing  society, 
until  a  complete  and  systematic  code  should  have  been  compiled. 
In  the  mean  time,  the  work  of  codification  had  been  steadily  pro- 
ceeding, and  resulted  in  the  promulgation  of  the  Criminal  Code  and 
the  Code  of  Criminal  Procedure  in  1880,  the  Revised  Code  of  Criminal 


380  COMPARATIVE  LAW 

Procedure  and  the  Code  of  Civil  Procedure  in  1890,  the  new  Civil 
Code  in  1896  and  1898,  and  the  Commercial  Code  in  1899. 

What  I  have  said  above  will  suffice  to  show  that  the  new  Japanese 
Civil  Code  stands  in  a  filial  relation  to  the  European  systems,  and 
with  the  introduction  of  Western  civilization,  the  Japanese  civil  law 
passed  from  the  Chinese  family  to  the  Roman  family  of  law. 

VI.    The  Publication  of  the  Code 

One  of  the  most  remarkable  changes  which  the  introduction  of 
Western  jurisprudence  produced  in  Japan  was  the  change  in  the 
conception  of  law.  Previous  to  the  Restoration  of  1868,  there  was  no 
idea  that  publication  was  essential  to  law.  On  the  contrary,  during  the 
time  of  the  Tokugawa  Shogunate,  most  laws,  especially  the  criminal 
code,  were  kept  in  strict  secrecy.  They  were  all  in  manuscript  and  were 
neither  allowed  to  be  printed  nor  published;  and  none  but  the  judges 
and  officials  who  were  charged  with  the  duty  of  carrying  the  rules 
into  effect  were  allowed  the  perusal  of  the  codes  and  the  records  of 
judicial  precedents.  The  famous  Criminal  Code  of  the  Tokugawa 
Shogunate,  commonly  known  as  the  "Hyakka-jo,"  or  "The  Hundred 
Articles,"  bears  the  following  injunction  at  the  end:  "The  above 
rules  have  been  settled  with  His  Highness 's  gracious  sanction,  and 
nobody  except  the  magistrates  shall  be  allowed  to  peruse  them." 

The  subsequent  compilation,  called  "  Kwajo-rui-ten,"  contains  the 
same  injunction  with  the  following  addition:  "Moreover,  it  is  for- 
ever forbidden  to  make  extracts  from  this  code,  even  of  one  article 
thereof." 

In  1841  thirteen  authentic  manuscript  copies  of  the  Code  were 
made,  and  all  the  other  copies  and  extracts  which  the  clerks  had 
made  for  their  own  use  were  ordered  to  be  produced  and  burnt.  A 
certain  Ono  Gonnojo  and  his  son  were  severely  punished  for  publish- 
ing a  book  which  contained  the  "  Hundred  Articles  "  of  the  Code.  An 
owner  of  a  certain  circulating  library  who  had  a  manuscript  book 
showing  the  days  on  which  the  magistrates  transacted  business,  or 
the  dies  fasti  and  nefasti  of  the  judicial  court,  was  punished  with 
banishment  from  his  place  of  abode.  These  and  many  other  like 
cases  which  occurred  during  the  Tokugawa  Shogunate  show  in  what 
strict  secrecy  some  parts  of  the  laws  were  kept  in  those  times. 

The  Taiho  Code  of  702,  Joyei-Shikimoku  of  1232,  and  other  old 
laws  before  the  time  of  the  Tokugawa  Shogunate,  were  printed  and 
distributed  among  officials  of  the  Imperial  or  the  Shogunate  Govern- 
ment, the  governors  of  provinces,  chiefs  of  clans,  etc.,  but  they  were 
not  published  in  the  sense  in  which  laws  are  published  in  the  present 
day.  The  Joyei  Shikimoku,  which  was  the  fundamental  code  during 
the  time  of  the  Hojo  Regency,  concludes  with  an  oath  by  the  coun- 
cilors, to  the  effect  that  they  would  render  justice  with  impartiality 


JAPANESE  CIVIL  CODE  381 

and  according  to  reason,  and  in  case  of  disobedience  to  the  rules  and 
principles  set  forth  in  the  Code,  they  would  incur  the  wrath  and  the 
punishment  of  the  gods.  These  laws  were  all  commands  addressed  to 
the  officials,  not  to  the  people.  They  were  rules  for  the  conduct  of  offi- 
cials, not  rules  of  conduct  for  the  citizen.  It  was  upon  officials  only 
that  law  imposed  the  obligation  to  observe  the  rules  of  law  in 
their  relation  to  the  people,  whether  they  acted  in  administrative 
or  in  judicial  capacity.  The  people  were  merely  passive  objects  of 
the  law,  and  it  was  their  part  implicitly  to  obey  the  commands  of 
officials.  Austin  and  others,  who  define  law  as  a  command  of  the 
lawgiver,  mean  thereby  a  command  addressed  to,  and  imposing 
obligations  upon,  the  citizen.  But  in  Japan,  this  conception  was 
only  reached  after  the  introduction  of  Occidental  jurisprudence  into 
the  country.  Two  legislative  acts  in  the  beginning  of  the  present 
reign  very  clearly  show  this  transition  in  the  nature  of  law.  The 
publication  of  the  new  Criminal  Code,  ''Shinritsu  Koryo,"  in  the 
third  year  of  Meiji,  marks  the  first  step  in  the  revolution  of  the  legal 
idea.  The  policy  of  the  Tokugawa  Government  was  based  upon  the 
famous  Chinese  maxim,  "  Let  people  abide  by,  but  not  be  apprised  of, 
the  law  "  (Sp['^^:^,  ^Pf'^^n;^)?  ^iid  went  so  far  as  to  keep  the 
law  in  strict  secrecy.  Although  the  first  Criminal  Code  was  modeled 
upon  Chinese  codes,  the  new  Imperial  Government  took  another 
and  wdser  Chinese  maxim,  "To  kill  without  previous  instruction  is 
cruelty"  (^t^lffn^^UM-ffi.);  ^^^  caused  the  new  code  to  be  printed 
and  published.  I  have  said  that  the  first  Criminal  Code  was  based 
upon  the  Chinese  system,  and  in  the  amended  Code  the  French 
Criminal  Code  was  consulted.  The  comparison  of  the  Imperial  Pro- 
clamations which  form  the  preambles  to  these  two  codes  is  very 
interesting,  as  showing  a  great  change  in  the  conception  of  law  that 
took  place  during  the  three  years  which  intervened  between  the  first 
and  the  second  code.  In  the  Imperial  Proclamation  which  is  prefixed 
to  the  first  code,  his  Majesty  enjoins  his  officials  to  observe  the  rules 
of  the  Code;  while  in  the  Imperial  Proclamation  attached  to  the 
second  code,  it  is  his  svl)jects  as  well  as  his  officials  that  are  so  com- 
manded. In  the  same  year  with  the  pubUcation  of  the  second  code, 
that  is,  1873,  a  law  was  enacted  (ordinance  68  of  sixth  year  of  Meiji) 
in  which  it  was  declared  that  "henceforth  every  law  shall,  on  its 
promulgation,  be  posted  up  in  convenient  places  during  thirty  days 
for  the  ijiformation  of  the  people."  Since  that  time  several  laws  have 
been  passed,  in  which  the  same  principle  is  carried  farther,  and  now 
the  publication  which  is  made  in  the  Ofiicial  Gazette  has  become  an 
essential  step  in  giving  them  binding  force. 

We  have  now  reached  the  third  stage  in  the  evolution  of  the  idea 
of  law.  At  present,  according  to  art.  37  of  the  constitution,  every 
law  requires  the  consent  of  both  Houses  of  the  Imperial  Diet.    Of 


382  COMPARATIVE   LAW 

the  five  codes  which  have  been  promulgated,  the  new  Civil  Code  was 
the  first  which  became  law  under  the  new  constitutional  government, 
and  therefore,  with  the  consent  of  the  Diet. 

From  what  I  have  said  above,  it  will  be  seen  that  there  are  three 
stages  observable  in  the  development  of  the  idea  of  law.  At  first, 
publication  was  not  essential  to  the  binding  force  of  the  law.  Laws 
were  commands  addressed  to  the  magistrates,  not  to  the  people.  The 
people  were  merely  the  passive  object  of  the  operation  of  laws.  Next 
comes  an  epoch  when  the  laws  become  commands  addressed  to  the 
people,  and  publication  forms  an  essential  element  of  the  law.  People 
become  the  direct  object  of  the  law,  and  a  party,  as  it  were,  to  its 
operation.  In  the  third  and  final  stage,  the  people  not  only  become 
a  party  to  the  operation  of  the  law,  but  a  party  to  the  making  of  it  through 
their  representatives. 

VII.    The  Appearance  of  the  Code 

The  Civil  Code  drafted  by  Professor  Boissonade,  which  became 
law  but  never  went  into  operation,  was  divided  into  the  following 
five  books;  namely,  book  i,  "Persons";  book  ii,  "Property  in 
General";  book  iii,  "Means  of  Acquiring  Property";  book  iv, 
"Security  of  Rights  in  personam";  and  book  v,  "Evidence."  The 
objections  which  were  raised  against  this  arrangement  were  many, 
some  from  scientific,  others  from  practical,  points  of  view;  but  it  is 
needless  to  mention  them  here.  Some  will  appear  when  I  come  to 
compare  it  with  the  arrangement  of  the  new  code.  The  framers  of 
the  latter  did  not  follow  the  arrangement  of  the  first  code,  nor  did 
they  adopt  the  classifications  of  the  French  or  other  codes  based  upon 
the  Institutes  of  Justinian. 

The  new  Civil  Code  is  divided  into  the  following  five  books,  accord- 
ing to  the  plan  which  German  jurists  call  "Pandekten-System"; 
namely,  book  i,  "General  Provisions";  book  ii,  "Rights  in  rem"; 
book  III,  "Rights  in  personam";  book  iv,  "Family  ";  and  book  v, 
"Succession."  One  of  the  reasons  for  rejecting  the  so-called  "Insti- 
tutionen-System,"  and  adopting  the  "Pandekten-System"  was  that 
the  latter  system  of  arrangement  was  peculiarly  suited  to  the  present 
state  of  law  in  Japan. 

The  first  code,  following  the  French  Code,  had  no  distinct  portion 
assigned  to  general  rules  applicable  to  all  other  parts.  This  system 
rendered  frequent  repetition  of  the  same  rules  necessary  in  different 
parts  of  the  code,  thereby  making  the  whole  work  a  voluminous  code, 
containing  1762  articles;  while  the  new  code,  following  the  Saxon 
Civil  Code  and  the  then  draft  of  the  German  Civil  Code,  placed  at  the 
beginning  all  the  general  rules  relating  to  persons  as  subjects  of  rights, 
to  things  as  objects  of  rights,  and  to  facts  and  events  by  which  rights 
are  acquired,  lost,  or  transferred.  This  method  of  arrangement  avoided 


JAPANESE   CIVIL   CODE  383 

unnecessary  repetitions  and  made  the  body  of  the  law  succinct,  the 
new  code  containing  only  1146  articles. 

The  new  code,  besides  having  a  book  devoted  to  general  provisions 
common  to  all  legal  relations,  has  distinct  places  set  apart  for  the  laws 
of  family  and  succession.  In  the  Code  drafted  by  Professor  Bois- 
sonade  the  law  of  family  was  included  in  book  i,  relating  to  "  Persons," 
and  the  law  of  succession  formed  a  part  of  book  iii,  relating  to  the 
"Means  of  Acquiring  Property."  Now  this  arrangement  formed  one 
of  the  strong  reasons  for  postponing  the  operation  of  the  first  code 
and  reconstructing  it  on  an  entirely  new  basis. 

Before  the  Restoration  it  was  the  family,  and  not  the  individual, 
that  formed  the  unit  of  society.  The  family  was  then  a  corporation; 
and  as  a  general  rule,  only  the  hause-head  could  hold  public  office  or 
private  property,  or  transact  business,  all  other  members  of  the  family 
being  dependent  upon  him.  But  since  the  Restoration,  this  state  of 
things  has  changed,  and  the  disintegration  of  the  family  is  rapidly 
going  on.  The  family  has  now  ceased  to  be  a  corporation  in  the  eyes 
of  law,  and  the  dependent  members  of  the  family  or  the  house- 
members  can  hold  office  or  property  or  transact  business  equally  with 
its  head.  Japanese  society  is  now  passing  from  the  stage  of  family-unit 
to  the  stage  of  individual-unit.  But  still  the  family  occupies  an  import- 
ant place  in  the  social  life  of  the  people,  and  there  are  many  rules 
which  are  peculiar  to  their  family  relations,  and  which  ought,  on  that 
account,  to  be  grouped  together  and  separated  from  the  rules  relating 
to  persons  regarded  simply  as  individuals.  The  "  Pandekten-System  " 
is  peculiarly  suited  to  this  transient  state  of  society,  for  it  provides 
for  the  rules  relating  to  persons  in  their  capacity  as  individuals  or 
members  of  a  society  in  the  general  part,  and  sets  apart  a  distinct 
place  for  those  rules  which  relate  to  persons  in  their  capacity  as  mem- 
bers of  a  family.  In  civilized  societies,  the  rules  which  regard  men  as 
individuals  belong  to  general  law,  while  those  which  regard  men  in 
their  family  relations  belong  to  particular  law.  But  in  less  civilized 
communities  the  case  is  just  the  reverse;  the  family  law  may  he  said 
to  form  the  general  law,  the  law  relating  to  persons  in  their  individual 
capacity  falling  under  the  category  of  particular  law.  Japan  is  now  in 
a  transition  stage;  so  that  the  placing  of  the  rules  relating  to  indi- 
viduals in  the  general  part  and  the  rules  relating  to  family  relations 
in  the  particular  part  of  the  Code  is  not  only  logically  correct,  but  is 
especially  suited  to  the  present  state  of  the  law  of  Japan. 

As  to  the  place  of  the  succession  law  in  the  Code,  strong  objection 
was  raised  against  the  arrangement  of  Professor  Boissonade  which 
put  it  in  book  iii,  under  the  head  of  "  Means  of  Acquiring  Property." 
In  Japan,  as  I  shall  show  presently,  succession  cannot,  at  least  as 
regards  the  most  usual  kind  of  it.  be  regarded  as  a  mode  of  acquiring 
property. 


384  COMPARATIVE   LAW 

Comparative  study  of  succession  laws  of  different  peoples  in  differ- 
ent degrees  of  civilization  shows  that  there  are  three  stages  in  the 
evolution  of  this  branch  of  law.  In  the  first  and  earliest  stage,  succes- 
sion is  regarded  as  the  mode  of  perpetuating  the  worship  of  ancestors; 
next  comes  the  time  when  it  is  regarded  as  a  mode  of  succeeding  to  the 
status  of  deceased  persons;  and  it  is  only  in  the  last  stage  that  suc- 
cession becomes  a  mode  of  acquiring  property. 

Now  in  Japan,  until  recently,  as  the  family  was  a  corporation  the 
only  person  who  could  hold  property  was  the  head  of  a  house.  Con- 
sequently the  only  kind  of  succession  which  was  then  recognized  by 
law  was  "  katoku  sozoku,"  or  the  succession  to  the  headship  of  a  house, 
which  was  the  succession  to  status,  and  the  house-property  descended 
to  the  heir  as  an  appendage  to  the  status  of  the  house-headship.  It  is 
only  since  house-members  were  allowed  to  have  independent  pro- 
perty that  succession  which  can  properly  be  said  to  be  succession  to 
property  began  to  be  recognized.  So  there  are  at  present  two  kinds 
of  succession,  status-succession  and  property-succession,  existing  side 
by  side.  The  status-succession  cannot  be  put  under  the  category  of 
the  law  of  property,  nor  can  the  property-succession  be  put  under  the 
law  of  persons.  The  arrangement  of  the  "  Pandekten-System,"  which 
devotes  a  particular  book  to  succession  law  at  the  end  of  the  Code,  is 
peculiarly  suited  to  this  state  of  law,  and  recommended  itself  to  the 
framers  of  the  new  code  in  preference  to  the  classification  adopted  by 
Professor  Boissonade. 

VIII.    The  Introduction  of  the  Notion  of  Right 

It  will  be  seen,  from  what  I  have  stated  above,  that  the  classifica- 
tion of  rules  in  the  new  Civil  Code  is  made  upon  the  basis  of  primary 
distinctions  regarding  rights.  But  the  notion  of  right  did  not  originally 
exist  in  Japan,  before  the  introduction  of  Western  jurisprudence. 
Many  writers  assume  that  right  is  coeval  with  law,  and  law  and  right 
are  only  two  terms  expressing  the  same  notion  from  different  points 
of  view.  Some  even  go  so  far  as  to  affirm  that  right  is  anterior  to  law, 
and  the  latter  exists  only  for  the  assurance  or  protection  of  the  former. 
In  Japan,  however,  the  idea  of  right  did  not  exist  so  long  as  her  laws 
belonged  to  the  Chinese  family.  There  was  indeed  the  notion  of  duty 
or  obligation,  but  neither  the  notion  of  right  nor  the  word  for  it  existed 
either  in  Japanese  or  Chinese.  The  nearest  approach  to  it  in  Japanese 
was  perhaps  "6wn,"  which  means  "share"  or  "portion."  This  word 
was  frequently  used  to  express  the  share  or  part  which  a  person  had 
in  society  and  which  he  expected  that  society  would  recognize  as  his 
due.  But  this  word  was  not  quite  definite  in  its  meaning,  and  was 
more  often  used  in  a  contrary  sense,  expressing  a  person's  duty,  or 
sometimes  the  part  or  limit  which  he  ought  not  to  exceed.  So,  when 
the  notion  of  right  was  first  introduced  into  Japan,  there  was  no  fit 


JAPANESE  CIVIL  CODE  385 

word  to  translate  it,  and  a  new  word  had  to  be  coined  to  express  this 
novel  idea.  The  late  Dr.  Tsuda,  who  had  been  sent  to  Holland  by  the 
Shogunate  Government  to  study  law  in  the  University  of  Leyden,  on 
his  return  to  Japan  published  a  book  entitled  A  Treatise  on  Western 
Public  Law,  in  1868,  the  year  of  the  Restoration.  In  this  book  he 
used  the  new  word  "ken-ri"  for  right,  which  he  coined  by  combining 
the  words  "ken,"  or  "power,"  and  "ri,"  or  "interest."  This  word  has 
since  been  received  to  express  the  notion  of  right.  Sir  John  Lubbock 
in  his  book  On  the  Origin  of  Civilization  (ch.  viii)  says  that  lower 
races  are  "deficient  in  the  idea  of  right,  though  familiar  with  that 
of  law."  Sir  Henry  Maine  says  that  "jus"  among  Roman  lawyers 
generally  meant  not  "  a  right  "  but  "law";  and  that  Romans  "con- 
structed their  memorable  system  without  the  help  of  the  conception 
of  legal  right."  I  think  it  may  be  laid  down  as  a  general  rule  of  the 
evolution  of  law  that  laws  from  being  the  rules  of  duty  become  the  rules 
of  right.  Early  laws  impose  duty  but  do  not  confer  right.  But  in  the 
course  of  time,  men  begin  to  realize  that  the  benefit  which  results  to 
any  one  on  account  of  duty  imposed  upon  another  is  of  greater 
importance  than  the  duty  itself;  so  that  right,  which  was  at  first  only 
the  secondary  notion  and  nothing  more  than  the  reflection  of  duty, 
began  to  be  regarded  as  the  primary  object  of  law.  This  change  in  the 
conception  of  law  has  taken  place  in  Japan  within  the  last  forty  years, 
and  has  resulted  in  the  classification  of  the  rules  of  the  Civil  Code  on 
the  basis  of  right. 

IX,  The  Legal  Position  of  Woman 

With  reference  to  book  :i  of  the  Code,  which  relates  to  "General 
Provisions,"  I  shall  only  touch  upon  the  subjects  of  the  legal  position 
of  woman  and  that  of  foreigners;  for  these  are  the  two  points  where 
the  Code  has  made  greatest  changes  in  that  part  of  the  law.  I  shall 
first  speak  of  woman. 

Three  periods  may  be  distinguished  in  the  history  of  Japan  as  to 
the  legal  position  of  woman;  the  first  corresponding  to  the  period 
during  which  our  national  law  consisted  solely  of  indigenous  elements ; 
the  second  when  Japanese  law  belonged  to  the  Chinese  family  of 
law;  and  the  third  dating  from  the  time  when  our  law  passed  from 
the  Chinese  to  the  European  family  of  law. 

The.  first  period  extends  from  the  beginning  of  our  history  to  the 
introduction  of  Chinese  civilization.  During  this  period,  women  seem 
to  have  occupied  a  higher  place  than  in  later  times,  filling  positions 
of  importance  and  honor  in  state,  rehgion,  and  household.  Perhaps 
the  higher  position  which  women  occupied  during  the  early  period 
of  our  history  was  due  partly  to  the  primitive  simplicity  and  the 
absence  of  artificial  doctrines,  which  later  on  assigned  a  subordinate 
position  to  women.  The  first  Imperial  Ancestor  and  the  central  figure 


386  COMPARATIVE  LAW 

in  national  worship  is  a  goddess,  "Amaterasu  O-mi-Kami,"  or  the 
"  Great  Goddess  of  the  Celestial  Light."  There  was  no  law  to  prevent 
female  members  of  the  Imperial  family  from  ascending  the  throne, 
and  there  have  been  many  Empresses  who  ruled  the  Empire.  The 
Empress  Jingo  invaded  and  conquered  Corea  at  the  head  of  a  large 
army. 

With  the  conquest  and  subjugation  of  Corea  by  this  "Empress 
of  God-like  Exploit"  begins  the  second  period  in  the  history  of  the 
legal  position  of  woman  in  Japan;  for  from  this  time  Chinese  civiliz- 
ation began  to  enter  Japan,  first  through  Corea,  and  afterward  from 
China  directly.  It  was  chiefly  the  doctrines  of  Chinese  moral  philo- 
sophy that  changed  the  primitive  state  of  comparative  freedom  and 
independence  of  woman,  and  placed  her  in  an  abnormally  inferior 
position.  The  Chinese  doctrine  of  the  perpetual  obedience  of  woman 
to  the  other  sex  is  expressed  in  the  precept  of  "  the  three  obediences  " 
(HtSt)  —  "obedience,  while  yet  unmarried,  to  a  father;  obedience, 
when  married,  to  a  husband;  obedience,  when  widowed,  to  a  son." 

It  is  curious  to  note,  by  the  way,  that  an  exact  counterpart  of  this 
doctrine  of  three  obediences  is  to  be  found  in  Hindu  law.  In  one 
place  Manu  says,  "  Day  and  night  women  must  be  kept  in  depend- 
ence by  the  males  of  their  family"  (Manu  ix,  2,  Buehler's  transl.); 
and  in  another  place,  "In  childhood,  a  female  must  be  subject  to  her 
father;  in  youth,  to  her  husband;  when  her  Lord  is  dead,  to  her 
sons  "  (v,  148). 

Buddhism  and  feudalism  contributed  to  the  keeping  of  woman 
in  a  state  of  dependence.  Buddhism  regards  woman  as  an  unclean 
creature,  a  temptation  or  snare  to  virtue,  and  an  obstacle  to  peace 
and  holiness.  Feudalism,  which  disdained  anything  effeminate,  also 
regarded  woman  in  the  light  of  a  temptation  to  courage  and  faithful 
performance  of  duty,  and,  although  she  was  treated  with  kindness 
and  consideration  far  above  that  received  in  other  Asiatic  countries, 
she  did  not  command  that  romantic  homage  which  the  gallant  knights 
of  Medieval  Europe  paid  to  the  other  sex.  Professor  Chamberlain, 
one  of  the  best  authorities  on  Japan,  writes :  "  Japanese  feudalism 
—  despite  its  general  similarity  to  the  feudalism  of  the  West  —  knew 
nothing  of  gallantry,  A  Japanese  knight  performed  his  valiant  deeds 
for  no  such  fanciful  reward  as  a  lady's  smile.  He  performed  them 
out  of  loyalty  to  his  lord,  or  filial  piety  towards  the  memory  of  his 
papa," 

Thus  these  three  factors,  Chinese  philosophy.  Buddhism,  and 
feudalism,  combined  to  place  the  Japanese  woman  in  a  state  of 
dependence  during  the  second  period.  She  could  not  become  the  head 
of  a  house;  she  could  not  hold  property  nor  contract  in  her  own  name ; 
she  could  not  become  a  guardian  of  her  own  child;  she  could  not 
adopt  a  child  in  her  own  name;   in  short,  she  had  no  independent 


JAPANESE  CIVIL   CODE  387 

status  and  was  excluded  from  the  enjoyment  or  exercise  of  almost  all 
rights. 

But  in  the  third  period,  during  which  European  civilization  has 
been  introduced,  female  education  has  spread  throughout  the  coun- 
try, Western  jurisprudence  has  superseded  Chinese,  and  Japanese  law 
has  become  a  member  of  the  European  family  of  laws,  a  great 
revolution  has  come  over  the  social  and  legal  position  of  woman. 
This  reform  was  consummated  by  the  publication  of  the  new  Civil 
Code.  This  code  "  created  the  new  legal  woman,"  as  an  able  writer 
on  Japan  has  expressed  it.  (Clement's  Modern  Japan,  ch.  xiii.)  It 
proceeds  upon  the  principle  of  equality  of  the  sexes,  and  makes  no 
distinction  between  man  and  woman  in  their  enjoyment  and  exercise 
of  private  rights,  so  long  as  the  woman  remains  single.  She  may  now 
become  the  head  of  a  house,  in  which  case  all  house-members,  whether 
male  or  female,  —  even  her  husband  when  she  is  married,  —  come 
under  her  power  and  are  legally  dependent  upon  her.  She  may  exer- 
cise parental  authority  over  her  own  child,  if  her  husband  be  dead. 
She  may  adopt  children  either  alone,  when  she  is  single  or  a  widow, 
or  in  conjunction  with  her  husband,  when  married.  She  may  make 
any  contract  or  acquire  or  dispose  of  property  in  her  own  name.  In 
short,  she  may  be  a  party  to  any  legal  transaction,  as  long  as  she 
remains  feme  sole.  When  she  is  married,  her  state  of  coverture  obliges 
her  to  obtain  the  permission  of  her  husband  in  doing  certain  acts, 
which  may  involve  grave  consequences  upon  their  conjugal  Ufe;  such 
as  contracting  debt,  acquisition  or  loss  of  immovables  or  valuable 
movables,  instituting  legal  proceedings,  accepting  or  renouncing 
succession,  entering  into  contract  of  personal  service,  etc.  Even  in 
regard  to  these  acts,  she  cannot  be  considered  as  laboring  under  legal 
incapacity,  for  when  she  does  these  acts  without  her  husband's  per- 
mission, they  are  not  void,  but  only  voidable,  that  is,  liable  to  be 
annulled  by  her  husband.  (Civil  Code,  art.  14.)  With  her  husband's 
permission  she  may  also  engage  in  business,  in  which  case  she  is 
considered  in  regard  thereto  as  an  independent  person.  (Civil  Code, 
art.  15.)  That  the  Civil  Code  places  husband  and  wife  on  an  equal 
footing,  except  when  consideration  for  their  common  domestic  life 
requires  some  modifications,  may  be  seen  from  the  provision  of 
art.  17,  which  allows  a  wife  to  do  the  acts  above  mentioned  without 
the  permission  of  her  husband  "  when  the  interests  of  the  husband 
and  wife  conflict,"  and  also  from  the  provision  of  art.  790,  in  which 
it  is  stipulated  that  "  a  husband  and  wife  are  mutually  bound  to 
support  and  maintain  each  other." 

The  great  revolution  in  the  legal  position  of  woman  which  the  new 
Civil  Code  brought  about  is  nowhere  so  clearly  seen  as  in  its  regula- 
tions relating  to  the  property  of  married  women. 

The  laws  relating  to  married  women's  property  are  different  in 


388  -  COMPARATIVE   LAW 

different  countries,  and  vary  with  the  degree  of  civiUzation  attained; 
but  broadly,  they  may  be  grouped  into  the  following  four  systems: 

(1)  System  of  Conjugal  Unity.  —  In  those  systems  of  law  which 
regard  man  and  wife  as  one  person,  or  in  which  the  wife's  per- 
sonality is  merged  in  that  of  the  husband,  whatever  the  bride 
possesses  at  the  time  of  marriage  becomes  the  property  of  the 
husband,  as  was  the  case  in  the  English  common  law,  or  under 
the  doctrine  of  Manus  in  the  early  Roman  law,  or  that  of  Mund 
in  the  early  Germanic  law. 

(2)  System  of  Dowry.  —  Another  system  sets  aside  a  part,  at  least, 
of  the  bride's  fortune  as  a  common  conjugal  fund,  the  manage- 
ment of  which  belongs  to  the  husband,  as  was  the  case  at  one 
period  under  Roman  law,  and  under  the  Code  Civil,  and  as  is 
now  practiced  in  the  south  of  France. 

(3)  System  of  General  Community  of  Conjugal  Property.  —  This 
system  exists  under  the  Code  Civil  side  by  side  with  the  dotal 
system,  principally  in  the  northern  part  of  France. 

(4)  System  of  Separate  Property.  —  Under  this  system  marriage 
makes  no  change  whatever  in  the  property  rights  of  the  bride, 
as  is  the  case  in  England  since  the  Married  Woman's  Property 
Act  of  1882,  and  in  many  states  of  the  United  States. 

Broadly  speaking,  the  usual  process  in  the  evolution  of  the  law  of 
conjugal  property  is  in  the  order  which  I  have  stated  above,  the 
system  of  unitjy  corresponding  to  the  lowest,  and  the  system  of 
separate  property  to  the  highest,  scale  of  civilization.  But  in  this 
respect  the  compilers  of  the  new  code  have  taken  a  decided  step, 
and  leaped,  at  one  bound,  from  the  system  of  complete  merger  of  wife's 
property  in  that  of  the  husband  to  the  system  of  separate  property. 
According  to  the  Code  (arts.  793-807),  persons  who  are  about  to 
marry  are  allowed  to  make  any  contract  with  regard  to  their  conjugal 
property,  which  will  be  binding  upon  them  and  can  be  set  up  against 
a  third  person,  if  registered  before  the  registration  of  the  marriage. 
If  such  contract  be  not  made  between  them,  their  relations  in  regard 
to  property  are  governed  by  the  general  rules  of  conjugal  property, 
which,  among  others,  laj^s  down  the  fundamental  rule  that  the 
property  belonging  to  a  wife  at  the  time  of  marriage  or  acquired  after 
marriage  in  her  own  name  shall  be  her  separate  property.  (Civil  Code, 
art.  807.) 

The  reform  in  the  law  of  divorce,  which  the  new  Civil  Code 
made,  also  marks  a  great  advance  as  regards  the  legal  position  of 
woman.  During  the  second  period,  while  the  Japanese  law  belonged 
to  the  Chinese  family,  the  law  of  divorce  was  based  upon  the  Chinese 
doctrine  of  "the  Seven  Grounds  of  Divorce"  (^^),  which  are  (1) 
sterility,  (2)  lewdness,  (3)  disobedience  to  father-in-law,  or  mother-in- 
law,  (4)  loquacity,  (5)  larceny,  (6)  jealousy,  and  (7)  "bad  disease. 


JAPANESE   CIVIL   CODE  389 

These  grounds  were  adopted  in  the  "house  law"  (koryo)  of  the 
Taiho  Code.  But  it  must  be  observed  that  these  grounds  were 
not  limitative,  as  in  the  case  of  modern  legislation.  They  are  only 
mentioned  as  just  grounds  for  abandoning  a  wife,  or  in  some  cases, 
such  as  barrenness,  adultery,  or  hereditary  disease,  as  a  moral  obli- 
gation which  a  husband  owes  to  his  ancestor  to  abandon  the  wife, 
because  the  object  of  marriage  was  the  perpetuation  of  ancestor- 
worship,  and  barrenness  may  cause  the  failure  of  heir,  adultery  the 
confusion,  and  hereditary  disease  the  pollution,  of  ancestral  blood. 
(See  my  work  on  Ancestor-Worship  and  Japanese  Law.)  Practically, 
a  wife  could  be  divorced  at  the  pleasure  of  her  husband,  under  any 
slight  or  flimsy  pretext,  the  most  usual  being  that  "She  does  not 
conform  to  the  usage  of  the  family."  It  must  be  further  observed 
that  divorce  during  this  period  meant  only  the  abandonment  of  the 
wife  on  the  part  of  the  husband.  The  wife  had  no  legal  right  to 
demand  divorce  from  her  husband  on  any  ground.  Divorce,  there- 
fore, was  not  a  bilateral,  nor  even  a  reciprocal,  act.  It  was  a  uni- 
lateral act  of  the  husband.  To  bring  an  action  against  the  husband 
or  to  give  information  of  a  crime  against  him  was  itself  considered 
a  grave  offense;  and  so  a  wife  could  not  demand  divorce  in  the 
court  of  law.  Divorce  was  the  privilege  of  the  husband  only,  as  in 
the  Mosaic  and  other  primitive  laws. 

But  this  state  of  things  has  changed  since  the  Japanese  law  passed 
from  the  Chinese  and  entered  the  European  family  of  laws.  In 
the  sixth  year  of  Meiji  (1873)  the  following  law  (no.  162)  was  enacted, 
which  for  the  first  time  allowed  the  wife  to  bring  an  action  of 
divorce  against  the  husband:  "Whereas  it  has  frequently  hap- 
pened that  a  wife  asked  divorce  from  her  husband  on  account  of 
unavoidable  circumstances,  to  which  the  latter  unreasonably  with- 
held his  consent  for  many  years,  thereby  causing  her  to  lose  the 
opportunity  of  second  marriage,  and  whereas  this  is  an  injury  to 
her  right  of  freedom,  it  shall  be  henceforth  allowed  to  the  wife  to 
bring  an  action  against  her  husband,  with  the  assistance  of  her 
father,  brother,  or  other  relative."  This  law  may  be  considered  as- 
a  revolution  in  the  legal  position  of  woman.  The  new  Civil  Code  went 
a  step  farther  and  placed  husband  and  wife  on  an  equal  footing  in  this 
respect.  According  to  the  Code  two  kinds  of  divorce  are  recognized, 
consensual  and  judicial,  the  former  being  effected  by  arrangement 
of  parties,  while  the  latter  is  granted  by  a  court  of  law  on  several 
grounds  specified  in  art.  813  of  the  Code.  The  grounds  for  judicial 
divorce  include,  inter  alia,  bigamy,  adultery,  sentence  for  an  offense 
of  grave  nature,  such  cruel  treatment  or  gross  insult  as  make  living 
together  unbearable,  desertion  with  evil  intent,  cruel  treatment 
or  gross  insult  of  or  by  lineal  ascendant,  uncertainty,  for  a  period 
of  three  years  or  more,  whether  the  consort  is  alive  or  dead.    Con- 


390  COMPARATIVE   LAW 

sensual  divorce,  requiring  the  consent  of  both  parties,  is  a  bilateral 
act,  whereas  divorce  during  the  second  period 'was  a  unilateral  act, 
which  took  place  at  the  will  of  the  husband,  who  gave  her  a  "letter 
of  divorce  "  formulated,  as  a  custom,  in  three  lines  and  a  half  "  miku- 
dari-han,"  stating  that  he  gave  her  a  dismissal,  and  nothing  should 
henceforth  stand  in  the  way  of  her  marrying  again.  As  to  the  judicial 
divorce,  either  party  to  marriage  can  claim  divorce  from  the  other, 
if  any  of  the  grounds  specified  by  law  exists,  so  that  husband  and 
wife  are  now  placed  on  an  equal  footing  in  this  respect. 

It  will  appear,  from  the  foregoing  rough  sketch  of  the  three  periods 
in  the  history  of  the  law  relating  to  the  position  of  woman,  that 
during  the  first  period,  while  Shintoism  was  the  only  form  of  wor- 
ship, woman  held  a  higher  place  than  in  the  second  period,  when 
Confucianism,  combined  with  Buddhism  and  feudalism,  held  down 
woman  in  a  state  of  subjection;  while  in  the  third  era  a  great  revo- 
lution has  been  made  in  the  position  of  women,  and  equality  with 
men,  as  far  as  their  private  rights  are  concerned,  is  vouchsafed  to 
them  under  the  new  Civil  Code. 

X.  The  Status  of  Foreigners 

The  possible  forms  which  the  law  of  any  country  relating  to  the 
position  of  foreigners  may  assume,  or  the  possible  stages  through 
which  it  may  pass,  may  be  arranged,  by  the  broad  generalization  of 
comparative  jurisprudence,  under  the  four  following  heads: 

(1)  Laws  based  upon  the  Principle  of  Enmity. 

The  laws  of  almost  all  barbarous  peoples  are  based  upon  the 
principle  that  all  foreigners  are  enemies,  and  consequently  have 
no  rights  whatever.  Even  after  they  cease  to  regard  foreigners  as 
enemies,  they  view  their  own  laws  as  exclusively  national;  that  is 
to  say,  they  are  applicable  only  to  their  own  countrymen.  Foreigners 
are  therefore  outlaws,  and  are  placed  outside  the  protection  of  the 
law. 

(2)  Laws  based  upon  the  Principle  of  Inferiority. 

With  the  advance  of  civilization,  especially  with  the  progress  of 
commerce,  foreigners  are  no  longer  regarded  as  enemies,  but  from 
disdain  for  foreigners,  or  from  national  egoism,  they  are  placed  in 
inferior  position  as  regards  the  enjoyment  of  their  private  rights. 
Sometimes  the  enjoyment  of  many  rights  is  totally  denied  them, 
or  sometimes  capricious  limitations  are  placed  upon  their  legal 
capacities.  In  this  stage  foreigners  enjoy  private  rights,  but  in  a 
limited  degree  only. 

(3)  Laws  based  upon  the  Principle  of  Reciprocity. 

Some  countries  make  the  condition  of  foreigners  dependent  upon 
the  treatment  which  their  own  people  receive  in  other  countries, 
and  allow  foreigners  the  enjoyment  of  their  rights  only  so  far  as  the 


JAPANESE  CIVIL   CODE  391 

countries  of  those  foreigners  allow  their  own  people  the  same  rights. 
This  principle  of  reciprocity  is  adopted  in  France  (Code  Civil,  art. 
11),  Austria  (Das  allg.  buergerl,  Gesetzbuch,  §  33),  Sweden,  Norway, 
Servia,  and  other  countries. 
(4)  Laws  based  upon  the  Principle  of  Equality. 
This  is  the  most  liberal  and  most  advanced  system  of  law  relating 
to  the  legal  condition  of  foreigners.  Beginning  in  1827  with  the 
Dutch  Civil  Code,  and  followed  by  the  Italian  Civil  Code  of  1865, 
it  has  now  been  adopted  in  the  majority  of  European  and  American 
states.  They  recognize  the  principle  of  equality  so  far  as  the  enjoy- 
ment and  exercise  of  private  rights  are  concerned,  some  few  excep- 
tions only  being  usually  made  on  grounds  of  national  policy,  such 
as  the  prohibition  or  limitation  of  the  ownership  of  land  or  ships, 
the  right  of  fishery,  the  right  of  working  mines,  or  engaging  in  the 
coasting-trade,  and  a  few  others. 

Now  in  regard  to  the  legal  condition  of  foreigners  in  Japan,  we 
may  distinguish  three  'periods,  which  nearly  correspond  to  the  first, 
second,  and  fourth  stages  above  mentioned.  The  first  period  includes 
the  time  before  the  opening  of  the  country  to  foreign  intercourse, 
the  second  from  that  time  until  the  new  Civil  Code  came  into  opera- 
tion, and  the  third  from  that  time  till  the  present  day. 

During  the  first  period,  which  may  be  called  the  Period  of  National 
Seclusion,  there  was  no  intercourse  with  foreign  countries.  Foreigners 
were  looked  upon  as  barbarians  or  enemies.  They  could  not  come  and 
reside  in  the  country,  except  in  a  very  few  instances,  and  therefore 
they  stood  entirely  outside  the  pale  of  the  law. 

The  second  period,  which  may  be  called  the  Period  of  the  Treaties, 
begins  from  the  date  of  the  second  visit  of  Commodore  Perry  in  1854 
and  the  conclusion  of  the  treaty  of  peace  and  amity  by  him,  followed 
in  1858  by  the  first  treaty  of  trade  and  commerce  with  the  United 
States.  Some  ports  were  opened  for  foreign  trade,  and  foreigners 
could  come  and  reside  within  the  limits  of  the  treaty  ports  and 
engage  in  trade,  business,  or  missionary  work.  But  their  rights 
depended  upon  the  treaties,  not  upon  the  law  of  the  country.  They 
enjoyed  the  privilege  of  extra-territoriality ;  that  is  to  say,  they 
brought  their  own  laws  with  them,  and  remained  under  the  jurisdic- 
tion of  their  respective  consuls. 

In  the  third  period,  which  may  be  called  the  Period  of  the  Code, 
foreigners  enjoy  their  rights  under  the  law,  and  the  treaties  only 
provide  for  the  guarantees  or  limitations  of  rights.  The  new  Civil 
Code,  at  its  commencement,  proclaims  the  noble  principle  of  the 
equality  of  foreigners  and  native  subjects  before  the  law.  Art.  2 
provides  that  "  Foreigners  enjoy  private  rights  except  in  those  cases 
where  such  enjoyment  is  prohibited  by  law,  ordinance,  or  treaty." 
And  as  to  foreign  juridical  persons,  art.   36  provides   that  "The 


392  COMPARATIVE   LAW 

existence  of  juridical  persons  other  than  states,  administrative 
districts,  and  commercial  companies,  is  not  admitted.  But  foreign 
juridical  persons  recognized  as  such  by  law  or  treaty  do  not  come 
under  this  rule. 

"  Foreign  juridical  persons  recognized  as  such  under  the  provision 
of  the  preceding  paragraph  have  the  same  private  rights  as  the 
same  classes  of  juridical  persons  existing  in  Japan;  but  this  does  not 
apply  to  such  rights  as  foreigners  cannot  enjoy,  or  so  far  as  special 
provisions  are  made  by  law  or  treaty." 

From  the  above  provisions,  it  will  be  seen  that  the  neio  Civil 
Code  made  the  equal  enjoyment  of  rights  a  general  rule,  and  limitations 
and  prohibitions  exceptions.  These  limitations  upon  the  foreigner's 
equal  enjoyment  of  rights  are  not  numerous,  and  do  not  differ 
greatly  from  those  existing  under  the  laws  of  many  other  modern 
states.  Such  restrictions  are  the  ownership  of  land  or  Japanese 
ships,  the  right  to  work  mines,  to  own  shares  in  the  Bank  of  Japan 
or  the  Yokohama  Specie  Bank,  to  become  members  of  the  Stock 
Exchange,  to  engage  in  the  emigration  business,  to  receive  bounties 
for  navigation  or  ship-building,  and  a  few  others.  Otherwise  foreigners 
are  as  free  as  the  Japanese  to  engage  in  any  commercial  or  industrial 
business,  or  to  own  shares  in  any  Japanese  companies.  Even  the 
restrictions  above  mentioned  do  not  work  so  hard  upon  foreigners  as 
it  may  at  first  appear,  for  although  foreigners  as  individuals  can- 
not own  land,  they  may  becorne  members  of  any  commercial  com- 
palny  owning  land  or  working  mines.  As  individuals,  they  may  have 
the  right  of  superficies,  which  is  the  right  to  use  another  person's 
land  for  the  purpose  of  enjoying  the  right  of  property  in  structures 
and  trees  thereon.  Moreover,  the  Law  no.  39  of  1901,  a  right  in  rem 
called  "the  right  of  perpetual  lease,"  was  created  especially  for  the 
benefit  of  foreigners  or  foreign  juridical  persons,  who  had  held  land 
in  the  treaty  ports  under  lease  from  the  Japanese  Government. 
These  leases,  which  had  been  no  more  than  rights  in  personam,  were 
turned  into  rights  in  rem,  and  the  rules  relating  to  ownership  are 
applied  to  them.  So  they  are  now  practically  the  same  as  ownership; 
and  as  soon  as  they  pass  into  the  hands  of  Japanese  subjects  they  are 
turned  into  ownership.  Moreover,  opinions  in  favor  of  allowing 
foreigners  to  own  land  are  daily  gaining  strength,  so  that  this 
restriction  is  quite  likely  to  be  removed  ere  long. 

It  will  appear  from  the  foregoing  statement  that  the  condition 
of  foreigners  has  undergone  a  great  revolution  during  the  half  cen- 
tury which  has  elapsed  since  the  opening  of  the  country.  In  the  first 
period,  foreigners  had  no  rights  whatever;  in  the  second  period,  they 
enjoyed  their  private  rights  under  treaties;  but  in  the  third  period, 
that  is,  under  the  new  Civil  Code,  they  enjoy  their  private  rights 
under  the  law,  which  recognizes  the  principle  of  equality  as  far  as 


JAPANESE  CIVIL   CODE  393 

private  rights  are  concerned.  Thus,  in  a  comparatively  short  space 
of  time,  Japanese  law  passed  from  the  stage  of  Enmity  to  that  of  Equal- 
ity —  a  revolution,  which  in  other  countries  has  required  many  cen- 
turies to  accomplish.  The  difference  between  the  second  stage,  in 
which  their  enjoyment  of  rights  depended  upon  treaties,  and  the 
third  stage,  in  which  their  rights  depend  upon  law,  very  clearly 
appears  in  the  present  condition  of  Russians  in  Japan.  As  the 
commercial  treaties  between  Japan  and  Russia  have  come  to  an  end 
by  the  outbreak  of  the  war,  if  Russian  subjects  had  enjoyed  their 
rights  only  under  the  treaties,  they  would  not  be  entitled  to  claim 
any  protection  from  Japan,  except  as  a  matter  of  favor.  But  as  their 
rights  are  now  guaranteed  by  the  provisions  of  the  Code,  Russian 
residents  still  remaining  in  Japan  enjoy  the  protection  of  law,  just 
as  peacefully  as  the  citizens  of  any  friendly  states.  The  Code  assures 
them  the  equal  enjoyiiient  of  private  rights,  whether  the  country 
to  which  they  belong  be  in  amicable  relations  with  Japan  or  not. 
This  difference  is  further  illustrated  by  Imperial  Ordinance  no.  352 
of  1899,  which  declared  foreigners  who  are  not  citizens  of  any  of  the 
Treaty  Powers  to  have  equal  freedom  of  residence  and  profession 
with  the  subjects  of  the  Treaty  Powers. 

XI,   The  House  and  Kinship 

It  will  be  at  once  remarked  by  any  one  reading  the  new  Civil 
Code  that  the  Japanese  family  law,  unlike  that  of  Europe  and 
America,  rests  upon  the  double  bases  of  House  and  Kinship.  The 
"  house  "  or  "  iye,"  in  the  sense  in  which  it  is  employed  in  the  Japanese 
law,  does  not  mean  a  household  nor  a  dwelUng-place,  but  a  group 
of  persons,  bearing  the  same  surname,  and  subject  to  the  authority 
of  its  chief  who  is  called  "  koshu  "  or  house-head.  The  other  mem- 
bers who  are  subject  to  the  authority  of  the  house-head  are  called 
"kazoku"  or  house-members.  It  is  not  necessary  that  a  house 
should  consist  of  a  group  of  persons,  for  a  house  may  exist  even  when 
there  is  only  one  person  in  it,  in  which  case  that  person  is  still  called 
"  koshu "  or  house-head.  The  house-membership  consists  of  those 
relatives  of  the  house-head  or  his  predecessors,  or  sometimes  also  of 
the  relatives  of  house-members  who  are  not  related  to  the  present 
or  preceding  house-heads  by  any  tie  of  kinship,  but  who  entered  the 
house  with  the  house-head's  consent;  such,  for  instance,  as  the 
relatives  of  the  house-head's  adopted  son,  or  daughter-in-law. 
(Civil  Code,  arts.  732-745.)  The  persons  who  constitute  the  members 
of  a  house  are  defined  by  law,  and  a  registry  is  kept,  in  each  district, 
of  persons  who  are  in  each  house.  The  house-membership  is  con- 
stituted in  accordance  with  the  following  rules : 

(1)  A  child  enters  the  house  of  its  father. 

(2)  A  child  whose  father  is  not  known  enters  the  house  of  its  mother 


394  COMPARATIVE  LAW 

(3)  A  "shoshi"  or  natural-born  child  recognized  by  its  father  who 
is  a  house-member,  or  a  natural-born  child  of  a  female  member 
of  a  house,  enters  the  house  of  its  father  or  mother  only  when 
the  house-head's  consent  is  obtained. 

(4)  A  wife  enters  the  house  of  her  husband,  except  when  a  female 
house-head  contracts  a  marriage,  in  which  case  the  husband 
enters  the  house  of  his  wife. 

(5)  A  relative  of  a  house-head  who  is  in  another  house  or  a  relative 
of  a  house-member  who  has  become  such  by  adoption  or  mar- 
riage, enters  the  house,  if  the  consent  of  the  head,  both  of  the 
house  he  is  leaving  and  of  the  house  he  is  entering,  is  obtained. 
A  person  who  cannot  enter  any  house,  such  as  a  child  whose 
parents  cannot  be  ascertained,  establishes  a  new  house,  and 
becomes  himself  a  house-head. 

A  house  thus  constituted  is  entered  in'  the  house-registrj'-  or 
"  koseki "  which  is  kept  in  every  district  thoughout  the  Empire. 

Kinship,  according  to  the  Civil  Code,  arises  from  relationship  by 
blood,  by  adoption,  or  by  marriage,  and  exists 

(1)  Between  relatives  by  blood  within  six  degrees  inclusive. 

(2)  Between  husband  and  wife. 

(3)  Between  relatives  by  marriage  within  three  degrees  inclusive. 
(Civil  Code,  art.  725.) 

(4)  Between  an  adopted  child  and  adoptive  parent  and  the  latter's 
blood  relatives,  the  same  relationship  exists,  from  the  date  of 
the  adoption,  as  that  between  blood  relatives.  (Civil  Code, 
art.  727.) 

(5)  Between  step-parents  and  step-children,  a  wife  and  her  hus- 
band's recognized  child,  the  same  relationship  exists  as  that 
between  parent  and  child. 

Now  a  house  may  include  persons  who  are  not  the  kindred  of  the 
house-head,  because  it  includes  the  kindred  of  the  preceding  house- 
head,  or  the  kindred  of  a  house-member  who  is  not  related  to  the 
present  house-head;  and  may  exclude  even  the  nearest  kindred, 
because,  by  adoption  or  marriage  and  other  causes  above  mentioned, 
a  man  may  enter  another  house,  or  return  to  the  original  house  by 
the  dissolution  of  the  marriage  or  adoptive  tie,  or  establish  a  new 
house,  leaving  his  own  parents  or  child  in  the  original  house.  The 
house,  therefore,  is  wider  than  kinship  on  the  one  side,  whilst  it  is 
narrower  on  the  other.  Sir  Henry  Maine's  description  of  the  ancient 
family  so  well  tallies  with  the  present  state  of  the  house  in  Japanese 
law  —  except  in  one  particular  which  shows  the  peculiarity  of  Japanese 
family  law  —  that  I  cannot  do  better  than  quote  his  words  in  full : 

"The  family,  then,  is  the  type  of  an  archaic  society  in  all  the 
modifications  which  it  was  capable  of  assuming;  but  the  family 
here  spoken  of  is  not  exactly  the  family  as  understood  b}^  a  modern. 


JAPANESE  CIVIL  CODE  395 

In  order  to  reach  the  ancient  conception,  we  must  give  to  our  modern 
ideas  an  important  extension  and  an  important  Umitation.  We 
must  look  on  the  family  as  constantly  enlarged  by  the  absorption  of 
strangers  within  its  circle,  and  we  must  try  to  regard  the  fiction  of 
adoption  as  so  closely  simulating  the  reahty  of  kinship  that  neither 
law  nor  opinion  makes  the  slightest  difference  between  a  real  and  an 
adoptive  connection.  On  the  other  hand,  the  persons  theoretically 
amalgamated  into  a  family  by  their  common  descent  are  practically 
held  together  by  common  obedience  to  their  highest  hving  ascendant, 
the  father,  grandfather,  or  great-grandfather.  The  patriarchal 
authority  of  a  chieftain  is  as  necessary  an  ingredient  in  the  notion  of 
the  family  group  as  the  fact  (or  assumed  fact)  of  its  having  sprung 
from  his  loins;  and  hence  we  must  understand  that  if  there  be  any 
persons  who,  however  truly  included  in  the  brotherhood  by  virtue 
of  their  blood  relationship,  have  nevertheless  de  facto  withdrawn 
themselves  from  the  empire  of  its  ruler,  they  are  always,  in  the 
beginnings  of  law,  considered  as  lost  to  the  family.  It  is  this  patri- 
archal aggregate  —  the  modern  family  thus  cut  down  on  one  side 
and  extended  on  the  other  —  which  meets  us  on  the  threshold  of 
primitive  jurisprudence."    (Maine,  Ancient  Law,  ch.  v.) 

Here  I  may  conveniently  compare  the  house  in  Japanese  law  with 
the  family  in  Roman  law,  in  order  to  show  the  characteristics  of 
the  former.  It  differs  from  the  Roman  family  chiefly  in  the  follow- 
ing points: 

(1)  The  house  is  not  a  family  group  held  together  by  "common 
obedience  to  the  highest  living  ascendant,"  as  in  the  Roman 
family,  but  is  a  legal  entity  originally  founded  on  ancestor-worship. 
Therefore,  it  would  be  nearer  the  truth  to  say  that  it  is  the 
highest  dead  ascendant,  by  the  common  obedience  to  whom  a 
house  is  held  together.  The  house-head  is  not  necessarily  the 
highest  living  ascendant,  but  is  a  person  who  succeeds  to  the 
authority  of  the  highest  ascendant.     Sometimes,  therefore,  a 

:  son  may  be  the  house-head,  and  his  father  may  be  a  house- 
member  under  his  authority,  as  in  the  case  of  abdication  of  the 
house-headship,  which  I  will  explain  presently.  Or,  sometimes,  a 
nephew  may  be  the  house-head,  and  the  uncle  may  be  a  house- 
member  under  him  as  will  happen  when  a  grandson  succeeds 
to  the  grandfather  by  representation.  Or  again,  there  may 
be  no  relationship  at  all  between  the  house-head  and  the  house- 
member,  as  I  have  explained  above. 

(2)  In  consequence  of  the  above  difference,  the  Roman  family 
dissolved  at  the  death  of  each  paterfamilias,  and  each  of  the 
next  highest  ascendants  became  in  his  turn  sui  juris  and  a 
paterfamiUas,  having  all  his  descendants  in  his  power.  Thus, 
if  the  deceased  paterfamilias  had  three  sons,  there  would  be 


396  COMPARATIVE  LAW 

three  families  instead  of  one.  But  the  Japanese  house  is  never 
dissolved  at  the  death  or  abdication  of  a  house-head  and  is 
succeeded  by  one  person,  all  other  members  remaining  alieni 
juris  as  before. 
(.3)  According  to  the  present  Japanese  law,  a  woman  may  become 
a  house-head,  and  if  she  marries,  she  may  continue  to  be  the 
house-head  and  have  her  husband  as  a  house-member  under  her 
power,  provided  such  intention  is  expressed  at  the  time  of  the 
marriage.  (Civil  Code,  art.  736.)  Under  Roman  law,  however, 
a  woman  could  never  exercise  authority  even  over  her  children. 

(4)  According  to  Roman  law,  when  a  woman  married,  she  always 
entered  the  husband's  family  and  passed  into  the  power  of 
another;  but  according  to  Japanese  law  the  husband  enters  the 
house  of  his  vyije  in  case  of  the  marriage  of  a  female  house-head, 
and  also  in  case  of  the  adoption  of  a  son-in-law  or  "  muko- 
yoshi,"  which  I  will  explain  later  on;  so  that  the  famous  maxim 
of  Roman  law,  "  Mulier  est  caput  et  finis  familiae,"  —  a  woman 
is  the  beginning  and  end  of  the  family,  —  does  not  apply  to 
Japanese. 

(5)  Patria  potestas  was  among  the  Romans  an  institution  of 
private  law,  and  it  is  so  with  us  at  the  present  time.  But  before 
the  Restoration,  it  was  an  institution  of  public  law  as  well 
as  of  private  law,  as  I  will  explain  when  I  come  to  speak  of  the 
decay  of  the  house-system. 

XII.  House-headship  and  Parental  Power 

From  the  nature  of  the  double  bases  of  the  Japanese  family  law 
it  follows  that  a  person  may  have  two  capacities,  one  as  a  member 
of  the  legal  house,  and  the  other  as  a  member  of  the  wider  group  of 
kindred.  Thus,  a  person  may  be  a  house-head  or  a  house-member, 
and  at  the  same  time  he  may  be  a  son.  In  such  cases,  if  he  is  the 
son  of  a  house-head,  he  is  placed  under  the  house-head's  power  and 
under  the  parental  power  of  the  same  person;  if  he  is  a  son  of  a 
house-member  who  is  himself  under  the  power  of  the  house-head, 
he  is  under  the  power  of  two  persons,  the  house-head  and  the  father. 
But  if  the  house-head  is  a  minor,  and  his  father  or  mother  is  a  house- 
member,  the  former  is  under  the  parental  power  of  the  latter,  while 
the  latter  is  subject  to  the  authority  of  the  former.  In  such  cases 
conflict  or  inconvenience  which  may  arise  from  mutual  subjection 
to  one  another  is  avoided  by  the  provision  of  art.  895  of  the  Civil 
Code,  according  to  which  the  parent  exercises  the  house-head's 
power  on  behalf  of  the  minor  house-head. 

Of  the  two  bases  of  the  Japanese  family  law,  the  house  and  the 
kindred,  more  weight  is  always  laid  on  the  former  than  on  the  latter, 
except  in  the  two  instances  of  the  duties  of  support  and  maintenance 


JAPANESE  CIVIL   CODE  397 

and  the  succession  to  the  property  of  house-members,  both  of  which 
are  new  institutions  introduced  by  the  Code  and  are  not  bound  by 
the  limit  of  the  house.  In  most  other  cases,  the  house  takes  precedence 
of  the  kindred,  and  a  man's  rights  and  duties,  capacities  and  in- 
capacities are  usually  determined  by  his  position  as  a  member  of 
the  house,  and  not  by  his  position  as  a  member  of  the  kindred. 
Parental  power  which  is  based  on  the  conception  of  kinship  is  limited 
by  the  conception  of  the  house,  and  is  recognized  only  so  far  as  the 
parent  and  child  are  in  the  same  house.  So  if  a  son  is  not  in  the 
same  house  with  his  father  or  mother,  he  does  not  stand  under  the 
paternal  power  of  either.  The  consent  of  the  house-head  is  always 
necessary  for  the  marriage,  adoption,  divorce,  or  the  dissolution  of 
adoption  of  the  house-member,  but  the  consent  of  parents  is  only 
required  when  the  offspring  is  in  the  same  house  with  them. 

Here  again  appears  the  difference  between  the  Roman  and  Japan- 
ese family  laws.  The  former  recognizes  only  one  authority  of  the 
head  of  the  family,  in  the  patria  potestas  of  the  highest  male  ascendant 
and  merges  the  parental  power  of  the  members  of  the  family  in  that 
of  the  paterfamilias,  while  the  Japanese  law  recognizes  parental 
authority  of  the  house-member  side  by  side  with  the  authorit}^  of 
the  house-head.  The  authority  of  the  house-head  includes  the 
right  of  consent  above  referred  to,  right  of  determining  the  residence 
of  house-members,  right  of  expelling  them  from  the  house  or  for- 
bidding their  return  to  it  on  certain  grounds  specified  by  law,  and 
the  right  of  succeeding  to  the  house-members'  property  in  default  of 
other  heirs.  The  parental  power  includes  the  custody  and  education 
of  children  who  are  minors,  right  of  correction,  right  of  determining 
their  place  of  abode,  business  or  profession,  of  managing  their  pro- 
perty, or  performing  several  legal  acts  on  their  behalf,  subject  in 
some  cases  to  the  approval  of  a  family  council.  Most  of  the  rights 
falling  under  the  parental  power  were  formerly  included  in  the 
house-head's  power,  but  the  new  Civil  Code  recognized  the  authority 
of  parent  and  transferred  them  to  the  parental  power,  and  greatly 
curtailed  that  of  the  house-head,  only  leaving  those  rights  to  him 
which  are  necessary  to  the  preservation  and  proper  management 
of  the  house.  This  recognition  by  the  Civil  Code  of  the  parental 
power  beside  the  authority  of  the  house-head  shows  the  transient 
state  of  Japanese  society  and  is  one  of  the  points  regarding  which  the 
framers  of  the  new  code  took  pains  to  adjust  the  laws  to  the  pro- 
gressive tendencies  of  the  society.  Formerly,  there  was  only  one 
authority  recognized  by  Japanese  law,  as  in  the  case  of  Roman 
law  —  that  of  the  house-head.  But  the  new  Civil  Code  took  a 
decided  step  and  recognized  the  parental  power,  besides  the  house- 
headship,  due  deference  being  paid  to  the  long-existing  custom 
among  the  people,  by  not  going  so  far  as  to  extend  that  recognition 


398  COMPARATIVE  LAW 

to  the  parents  who  belong  to  a  different  house  from  that  of  the 
child.  The  tendency  of  the  laws  of  a  progressive  society  must  be 
the  gradual  recognition  of  natural  relationship  in  place  of  artificial 
connections;  and  the  process  of  evolution  in  this  branch  of  law  is 
from  house  to  kinship.  The  reform  made  by  the  new  Civil  Code 
may  be  regarded  as  the  first  step  in  that  direction. 

XIII.  Relationships 

The  method  of  determining  the  degrees  of  relationship  accord- 
ing to  the  new  Civil  Code  is  the  same  as  that  adopted  in  most  coun- 
tries of  Europe  and  America,  belonging  to  the  system  of  Roman 
law;  that  is,  by  reckoning  the  number  of  generations  which  inter- 
vene between  two  persons,  either  directly  when  they  are  lineal 
relatives,  or  through  a  common  ancestor,  when  they  are  collaterals. 
This  system  of  determining  the  degrees  of  relationship  by  the  dis- 
tance of  consanguinity  is  the  most  natural  one  and  is,  for  that 
reason,  adopted  from  Western  jurisprudence  by  the  framers  of  the 
Code.  But  previous  to  the  adoption  of  the  Code,  while  Japanese 
law  still  belonged  to  the  family  of  Chinese  law,  relationship  was 
determined  in  a  different  way.  The  basis  of  the  new  system  is  the 
distance  of  Mood  relationship  between  relatives,  but  the  old  law  rested 
on  the  double  bases  of  blood  relationship  and  family  rank;  that  is  to 
say,  the  degree  of  relationship  was  determined  not  only  by  the  dis- 
tance of  blood  relationship,  real  or  fictitious,  but  also  by  the  con- 
sideration of  superiority,  or  inferiority  of  their  relative  positions  in 
the  family.  In  "the  ceremony  law"  of  the  Taiho  Code  (701  a.  d.), 
kindred  are  divided  into  the  following  five  ranks  or  "Go-to-shin." 

(1)  The  relatives  of  First  Rank  are:  father  and  mother,  adoptive 
father  and  adoptive  mother,  husband,  son,  and  daughter. 

(2)  The  relatives  of  the  Second  Rank  are :  grandfather  and  grand- 
mother, "tekibo"  (or  wife  of  the  father  of  a  concubine's  child), 
step-mother,  uncle  and  aunt,  brothers  and  sisters,  husband's 
parents,  wife  and  concubine,  brother's  child,  grandson  and 
granddaughter,  and  son's  wife. 

(3)  The  relatives  of  the  Third  Rank  are:  great-grandfather  and 
great-grandmother,  uncle's  wife,  husband's  nephew,  cousin, 
brother  and  sister  by  half-blood  on  father's  side,  husband's 
grandfather  and  grandmother,  husband's  uncle  and  aunt,  wife 
of  nephew,  step-father,  and  child  of  husband  by  his  former 
wife  or  concubine,  provided  the  child  is  living  in  the  same  house. 

(4)  The  relatives  of  the  Fourth  Rank  are:  great-great-grand- 
father and  great-great-grandmother,  grandfather's  brother  and 
sister,  father's  cousin,  husband's  brother  and  sister,  brother's 
wife  and  concubine,  second  cousin,  grandfather  and  grand- 
mother on  mother's  side,  uncle  and  aunt  on  mother's  side, 


JAPANESE   CIVIL   CODE  399 

brother's  grandchild,  cousin  german's  child,  sister's  child,  great- 
grandchild, grandson's  wife  and  concubine,  and  child  of  wife's 
or  concubine's  former  consort. 
(5)  The  relatives  of  the  Fifth  Rank  are:  parents  of  wife  or  con- 
cubine, aunt's  child,  cousin  on  mother's  side,  great-great-grand- 
child, grandchild  by  a  daughter  who  entered  another  house  by 
marriage,  and  son-in-law. 

The  above  table  will  show  that  the  degree  of  relationship  was 
greatly  modified  by  the  consideration  of  rank  in  the  family;  so  that 
those  who  stand  in  the  same  rank  are  not  always  related  in  an  equal 
degree,  when  measured  only  with  reference  to  the  distance  of  con- 
sanguinity. It  will  be  seen  that  precedence  is  generally  given  to 
father's  and  husband's  relatives,  and  to  those  who  are  in  the  same 
house,  in  preference  to  mother's  and  wife's  relatives  and  to  those  who 
are  in  another  house.  Thus,  uncle  and  aunt  on  the  father's  side  stand 
in  the  Second  Rank,  while  those  on  the  mother's  side  stand  in  the 
Fourth.  Husband  is  the  relative  of  the  First  Rank  to  wife,  but  the 
wife  is  the  relative  of  the  Second  Rank  to  the  husband.  Husband's 
parents  are  in  the  Second  Rank,  while  wife's  parents  are  in  the  Fifth. 
Nephew  and  niece  by  brother  are  in  the  Second  Rank,  while  those  by 
sister  are  in  the  Fourth.  Grandchild  by  son  is  in  the  Second,  while 
grandchild  by  daughter  is  in  the  Fifth  Rank,  because  the  latter  is  in 
another  house  on  account  of  marriage. 

The  law  also  made  distinction  between  "sonzoku"  or  "superior 
kin"  and  "hizoku"  or  "inferior  kin."  The  former  includes  all  rela- 
tives, lineal  and  collateral,  who  stand  above  any  person  in  the 
same  lateral  Hne  of  the  table  of  consanguinity;  such  as  father,  uncle, 
father's  cousin,  grandfather,  etc.,  while  the  latter  includes  those  who 
stand  in  the  lateral  lines  below  him,  such  as  son,  nephew,  cousin's 
child,  grandson,  etc. 

This  system  of  classifying  relatives  into  five  ranks  was  derived 
from  the  Chinese  law  of  mourning.  From  ancient  times  down  to 
the  present  day,  Chinese  law  has  been  very  strict  as  to  mourning, 
because  it  was  considered  as  the  highest  duty  of  a  man  to  show 
respect  and  love  toward  the  departed  soul  of  his  relative  by  that 
act;  and  the  moral  as  well  as  the  legal  code  prescribed  even  the 
"Mourning  of  Three  Years"  to  the  dutiful  son.  Chinese  codes 
abound  in  minute  regulations  as  to  the  mourning-dress,  the  dura- 
tion of  the  time  of  mourning,  and  the  conduct  of  mourners.  The 
mourning-dress  is  divided  into  five  classes,  and  the  duration  of  the 
period  of  mourning  is  fixed  by  the  class  of  the  mourning-dress  which 
the  mourner  ought  to  wear.  The  mourning-dress  is  coarser  in  ma- 
terial and  make  as  the  person  mourned  for  stands  nearer  and  higher 
in  the  family  position  to  the  mourner,  —  the  first  class,  which  is  worn 
for  parents,  husband,  and  husband's  parents,  being  the  coarsest. 


400  COMPARATIVE  LAW 

The  first-class  mourning-dress  is  worn  for  three  years,  the  second 
for  two  years,  the  third  for  nine  months,  the  fourth  for  five  months, 
and  the  fifth  for  three  months.  Relatives  are  classified  according 
to  the  jive  classes  of  mourning-dresses  which  are  worn  for  them.  Thus, 
for  instance,  father  and  mother  belong  to  the  relatives  of  the  first- 
class  mourning-dress;  grandparents  to  the  second  class;  cousins  to 
the  third;  great-uncles  and  aunts  to  the  fourth;  and  wife's  parents  to 
the  fifth.  This  classification  of  relatives  according  to  the  five  classes 
of  mourning-dresses  very  nearly  corresponds  to  the  five  ranks  men- 
tioned in  the  Taiho  Code,  except  with  respect  to  great-grandparents, 
who  belong  to  the  Third  and  Fourth  Rank  respectively  according  to 
the  Taiho  Code,  but  who  are  placed  according  to  Chinese  law  in  the 
second  class.  Besides,  this  classification  which  is  made  in  the  cere- 
monial law  of  the  Chinese  codes  finds  its  place  in  the  "  ceremony 
law"  or  "Gi-sei-ryo"  of  the  Taiho  Code,  instead  of  the  "house 
law,"  where  one  would  naturally  expect  to  find  it.  So  there  is 
little  room  for  doubt  that  the  above-mention'ed  Japanese  classi- 
fication of  the  relatives  into  the  "five  ranks"  had  its  origin  in  the 
Chinese  law  of  mourning-dress. 

During  the  Tokugawa  Shogunate  the  study  of  the  Chinese  classics 
was  greatly  encouraged,  and  in  1638  the  famous  "mourning-law" 
(Mi©»^)  was  made,  which  has  since  then  been  amended  several 
times  and  the  classification  of  the  "five  ranks"  went  practically 
into  disuse,  until  it  was  revived  by  the  Criminal  Code  of  1870,  which 
struck  off  concubines  from  the  Third,  Fourth,  and  Fifth  ranks,  and 
made  a  few  other  unimportant  alterations.  But  with  the  publication 
of  the  present  Criminal  Code  in  1882,  it  was  abolished,  and  was 
replaced  sixteen  years  later  by  the  present  system  of  reckoning 
relationship  adopted  in  the  new  Civil  Code.  In  this  respect,  too, 
Japanese  law  has  passed  from  the  Chinese  to  the  European  family 
of  law. 

XIV.    The  Law  of  Personal  Registration  and  the  Civil  Code 

As  the  house  in  the  Japanese  family  law  is  narrower,  in  one 
respect,  than  kindred,  and  may  exclude  even  the  nearest  relatives 
by  blood,  and  wider,  in  another  respect,  and  may  include  strangers, 
there  is  no  logical  test  to  determine  the  sphere  of  persons  constituting 
the  house  other  than  their  common  subjection  to  the  authority  of 
one  man,  the  house-head.  Some  other  external  legal  evidence  is 
required,  therefore,  for  determining  the  constituents  of  a  particular 
house.  Such  evidence  is  supplied  by  the  register  which  is  kept  in 
every  district  throughout  the  Empire.  As  a  person's  birth,  marriage, 
adoption,  guardianship,  death,  succession,  entrance  to  or  separation 
from  a  house,  acquisition  or  loss  of  nationality,  and  every  other 
change  of  man's  status  is  recorded  in  the  register,  the  law  relating 


JAPANESE  CIVIL   CODE  401 

to  registration  forms  a  supplementary  law  to  the  Civil  Code,  and  the 
present  law  was  promulgated  and  put  into  force  on  the  same  day  as 
the  Code.  As  the  register  is  the  record  of  man's  legal  position  in 
society,  the  development  of  society  is  often  reflected  in  the  law  of 
registration.  Three  stages  may  be  distinguished  in  the  history  of  the 
law  of  personal  registration  in  Japan;  (1)  the  epoch  of  clan-regis- 
tration; (2)  the  epoch  of  house-registration;  and  (3  the  epoch  of 
status-registration.  These  epochs  show  the  changes  in  the  units 
of  state  and  correspond  to  the  three  stages  in  the  process  of  social 
disintegration. 

In  the  early  days  of  Japanese  history,  it  was  not  the  individual 
nor  the  family  that  formed  the  unit  of  state.  The  state  only  took 
cognizance  of  clans  and  the  government  of  families  and  individuals 
in  each  clan  was  left  to  the  chief  of  the  clan  or  "uji-no-kami,"  who 
was  usually  the  eldest  male  descendant  of  an  eponymous  ancestor. 
He  was  honored  and  obeyed  by  clansmen  as  the  representative  of 
their  common  ancestor.  He  was  th6  head  of  their  worship,  their 
leader  in  time  of  war,  and  their  governor  in  time  of  peace.  There 
were  great  clans  or  "o-uji"  and  small  clans  or  "ko-uji,"  the  latter 
being  included  in  the  former.  Clansmen  of  the  small  clan  were 
governed  by  their  chief,  who  was  himself  subject  to  the  chief  of  the 
great  clan.  The  Emperor  was  the  supreme  authority  over  them,  and 
all  the  laws  and  proclamations  of  the  Imperial  Government  were 
transmitted  to  the  "  uji-no-kami "  of  the  great  clans,  who  in  turn 
transmitted  them  to  the  "  uji-no-kami "  of  the  small  clans.  Thus 
each  clan  was  a  body  founded  on  community  of  blood  and  worship 
and  formed  an  administrative  division  of  the  country,  corresponding  to 
the  present  administrative  divisions,  such  as  provinces,  cities,  towns, 
districts,  and  villages. 

After  the  introduction  of  Chinese  civilization  and  the  Reform  of 
the  Taika  Era  (645  a.  d.),  in  spite  of  the  fact  that  the  clan  system 
of  government  continued  for  a  long  time  afterward,  the  basis  of 
the  administrative  division  of  the  country  gradually  changed  from 
a  personal  to  a  territorial  system  and  provinces  and  districts  took  the 
place  of  clans. 

In  those  early  days  of  clan  government,  it  was  of  the  utmost 
importance  that  each  man's  clan-name  should  be  kept  sacred. 
As  only  those  who  belonged  to  certain  clans  could  fill  high  official 
positions,  or  join  the  Imperial  body-guard,  and  as  several  other 
privileges  were  enjoyed  by  particular  clans,  attempts  were  often 
made  by  clansmen  to  forsake  their  original  clans  and  surreptitiously 
adopt  the  names  of  other  and  more  influential  clans.  Inorder  to  put 
a  stop  to  these  abuses,  the  "ordeal  of  hot  water"  or  "kugadachi" 
was  resorted  to,  which  consisted  in  plunging  the  hand  into  hot  water 
before  the  temple  of  a  god.   It  was  claimed  that  those  who  assumed 


402  COMPARATIVE  LAW 

false  clan-names  would  suffer  injury,  while  the  innocent  would 
escape  unhurt.  Afterward,  in  the  year  815  a. d.,  a  "Register  of 
Clan-names"  or  " Seishi-roku "  was  compiled,  a  part  of  which  is 
still  in  existence  to-day.  This  register  consisted  of  30  volumes  and 
contained  1182  clan-names. 

The  introduction  of  the  house-register  or  "ko-seki"  dates  back 
as  far  as  the  first  year  of  the  Taika  Era.  But  it  owes  its  origin  to  the 
adoption  of  Chinese  institutions,  and  although  its  introduction  was 
earlier  in  date  than  the  final  compilation  of  the  register  of  clan- 
names,  its  historical  order  must  come  after  that  of  the  clan-registry, 
for  the  system  of  house-registry  has  continued  from  that  remote 
period  down  to  the  present  time. 

It  was  only  in  the  year  of  the  publication  of  the  new  Civil  Code 
(1898)  that  our  law  of  registration  began  to  enter  upon  the  third 
stage  of  its  development.  The  present  law,  which  was  promulgated 
at  the  same  time  as  the  Civil  Code,  and  which  replaced  the  previous 
law  of  1871,  still  retains  the  name  of  "Ko-seki  Ho"  or  the  "Law  of 
House-registration";  but  the  character  of  the  law  has  undergone 
a  change,  necessitated  by  the  progress  of  the  social  condition  of  the 
country,  for  it  provides  for  the  registration  of  individual  status  or 
"mihuu-toki"  as  well  as  of  house-registration. 

It  is  sometimes  asserted  that  the  family  was  the  original  unit  of 
the  state,  and  that  an  aggregation  of  families  formed  a  clan.  But 
this  view  seems  to  reverse  the  real  order  of  development.  The  clan  grew 
out  of  the  expansion  of  a  family,  and  separate  households  grew  up 
within  the  clan  by  the  increase  of  clansmen.  It  was  their  common 
worship  and  common  clan-name  which  united  them  to  a  group.  So 
it  was  the  clan  which  was  first  recognized  by  the  state  and  formed 
its  unit.  The  family  or  house  was  included  in  the  clan  and  did  not 
yet  possess  separate  existence  in  the  eyes  of  the  law.  It  was  only 
by  the  gradual  disintegration  of  the  clan  and  the  growth  of  the  central 
fow:r  of  the  state  that  the  family  or  house  came  to  the  fore,  and  began  to 
form  the  unit  of  the  state.  Thus  the  constituent  elements  of  each  society 
become  smaller  and  smaller,  until  (hey  divide  themselves  into  atoms 
or  individuals. 

XV.   Adoption 

The  importance  of  the  fiction  of  adoption  to  primitive  society 
has  been  illustrated  by  Sir  Henry  Maine  in  many  places.  In  one 
passage  he  says,  "Without  the  fiction  of  adoption  which  permits 
the  family  tie  to  be  artificially  created,  it  is  difficult  to  understand 
how  society  would  ever  have  escaped  from  its  swaddling-clothes, 
and  taken  its  first  step  toward  civilization. "  {Ancient  Law,  ch.  ii.) 
Its  importance  in  India  and  also  at  Rome  and  Athens  is  well  known 
aniong  students  of  historical  and  comparative  jurisprudence.     But 


JAPANESE  CIVIL  CODE  403 

in  modem  systems  of  law  adoption  no  longer  occupies  the  position 
of  importance  which  it  held  in  archaic  societies.  It  still  survives  in 
most  of  the  countries  which  have  received  Roman  law,  but  with 
several  restrictions  as  to  its  effects,  which  make  it  in  no  way  resemble 
that  assumption  of  real  kinship  which  characterized  the  ancient 
form  of  adoption.  To  the  English  family  of  law  it  is  totally  un- 
known as  a  legal  institution. 

But  in  Japan  adoption  may  be  regarded  as  the  corner-stone  of 
family  law.  Without  it  the  continuity  of  the  house,  upon  which 
rests  the  perpetuation  of  ancestor-worship,  cannot  be  maintained. 
The  practice  of  adoption  has  been  so  common  and  universal  among 
the  people,  from  ancient  time  down  to  the  present  day,  that  Professor 
Chamberlain  writes:  "It  is  strange, but  true,  that  you  may  often  go 
into  a  Japanese  family  and  find  half-a-dozen  persons  calling  each  oth^r 
parent  and  child,  brother  and  sister,  uncle  and  nephew,  and  yet 
being  really  either  no  blood  relations  at  all,  or  else  relations  in  quite 
different  degrees  from  those  conventionally  assumed." 

Adoption  in  different  systems  of  law  may  he  classified  with  regard 
to  its  object,  under  the  following  jour  heads: 

(1)  Adoption  for  the  purpose  of  perpetuating  the  family  sacra. 

(2)  Adoption  for  the  purpose  of  obtaining  a  successor  to  house- 
headship. 

(3)  Adoption  for  the  purpose  of  obtaining  a  successor  to  property. 

(4)  Adoption  for  charitable  purposes,  or  for  consolation  in  case  of 
childless  marriage. 

The  historical  order  of  the  development,  or  rather  the  decay,  of 
the  law  of  adoption  is  usually  as  indicated  above.    I  will  proceed  to 
explain  them  in  order. 
(1)  Adoption  for  the  purpose  of  perpetuating  family  sacra. 

Death  without  an  heir  to  perpetuate  the  worship  of  ancestors  was 
considered  to  be  the  greatest  act  of  impiety  which  a  descendant 
could  commit.  So  in  the  case  of  the  failure  of  male  issue,  it  was  the 
bounden  duty  of  a  house-head  to  acquire  a  son  by  means  of  adoption. 
Adoption  was,  as  Fustel  de  Coulanges  says,  "  a  final  resource  to  escape 
the  much  dreaded  misfortune  of  the  extinction  of  a  worship." 

Many  provisions  of  our  ancient  Code  show  that  the  object  of 
adoption  was  the  perpetuation  of  the  sacra.  The  house  law  of  the 
Taiho  Code  provides  that  "A" person  having  no  child  may  adopt  one 
from  among  his  relatives  vnthin  the  Fourth  Rank  of  Kinship,  whose 
age  does  not  exceed  that  which  might  have  been  attained  by  a  son 
of  the  adopter's  own  body."  According  to  some  commentators  on 
the  Taiho  Code,  "having  no  child"  here  means  that  the  adoptive 
father  should  have  reached  the  age  of  sixty  years,  or  the  adoptive 
mother  fifty  years,  without  having  male  issue.  The  reason  for  limiting 
the  age  of  the  adopter  was,  that  as  long  as  any  hope  of  having  a  male 


404  COMPARATIVE  LAW 

issue  of  blood,  that  is,  the  direct  descendant  of  his  ancestors,  existed, 
the  head  of  a  house  should  not  permit  a  person  of  more  distant  rela- 
tionship to  become  the  successor  to  the  sacra. 

That  the  object  of  adoption  was  the  perpetuation  of  ancestor- 
worship  may  also  be  inferred  from  the  old  strict  rule  that  only  a 
kinsman  could  he  adopted  as  a  son.  The  Taiho  Code  did  not  permit 
adoption  of  kindred  beyond  the  Fourth  Rank,  as  I  have  said  above. 
From  the  remains  of  the  Taiho  Criminal  Code  which  have  come 
down  to  us,  we  know  that  a  punishment  of  one  year's  penal  servitude 
was  inflicted  upon  one  who  adopted  a  son  from  a  different  clan. 
This  prohibition  against  the  adoption  of  a  person  not  related  by 
blood  derives  its  origin  from  the  belief,  which  generally  exists  where 
the  practice  of  ancestor-worship  prevails,  that  "the  spirit  does  not 
receive  the  offerings  of  strangers." 

Another  requirement  of  adoption,  which  is  to  be  found  in  the 
laws  of  many  countries,  is  the  absolute  failure  of  male  issue.  The 
house  law  of  the  Taiho  Code  allowed  adoption  only  in  case  a  man 
had  no  son.  The  object  of  this  rule  is  clear  from  what  I  have  said 
above.  A  remoter  relative  should  not  be  admitted  where  there  is 
a  nearer  descendant  to  make  offerings. 

There  is  one  peculiar  form  of  adoption  called  "muko-yoshi" 
or  "  adoption  of  son-in-law,"  the  origin  of  which  must  be  attributed 
to  the  same  cause.  As  I  have  said  above,  the  law  considered  a  man 
childless,  even  though  he  had  a  daughter.  Males  were  the  only  con- 
tinuators  of  worship.  Those  who  had  daughters  only  were  therefore 
obliged  to  adopt  a  son;  but  it  was  necessary  for  the  blood  of  the 
ancestor  to  be,  if  possible,  continued  in  the  house.  In  such  cases,  a 
house-head  selects  a  person  who  is  fit  to  be  his  daughter's  husband 
and  adopts  him  as  a  son.  If  adoption  and  marriage  take  place  at  the 
same  time,  it  is  called  "muko-yoshi"  or  "adoption  of  son-in-law.''' 
The  same  object  may  also  be  attained  by  the  subsequent  marriage 
of  the  adopted  son  with  the  daughter  of  the  adopter,  for  the  col- 
lateral relationship  of  brother  and  sister  hy  adoption  is  no  bar  to  their 
marriage. 
(2)  Adoption  for  the  purpose  of  obtaining  a  successor  to  house- 
headship. 

As  the  house  is  the  seat  of  ancestor-worship  and  the  house-head 
is  the  continuator  of  the  sacra,  this  kind  of  adoption  cannot  be 
regarded  as  differing  from  that  above  mentioned.  But  with  the 
development  of  the  house-system  the  authority  of  the  head  of  a 
house  begins  to  be  regarded  as  a  distinct  object  of  inheritance  by 
itself,  and  the  family  sacra  only  as  one  of  the  duties  incumbent  upon 
the  house-head.  Especially  was  this  the  case  when  hereditary  office, 
profession,  or  fief  belonged  to  "house-headship.  In  Japan  this  stage 
was  reached  when  the  feudal  system  was  established,  and  daimios 


JAPANESE  CIVIL   CODE  405 

and  samurais  had  their  fiefs  belonging  to  their  houses.  Under  the 
feudal  regime  the  nature  of  military  service  required  that  males  only 
should  become  house-heads.  Hence  the  failure  of  male  issue  was  also 
the  cause  of  adoption.  It  was  necessary  to  make  provision  against 
the  contingency  of  a  house  becoming  extinct  and  the  fief  being 
escheated  by  failure  of  heirs.  As  professions  were  at  that  time 
usually  hereditary  and  were  considered  as  belonging  to  certain 
houses,  adoption  was  frequently  resorted  to,  in  order  to  keep  the 
profession  in  the  house.  Physicians,  artists,  masters  of  fencing,  riding, 
archery,  professors  of  classics  and  the  like,  often  adopted,  by  special 
permission,  those  qualified  to  succeed  them  in  the  profession,  even 
though  they  may  have  had  sons  of  their  own,  the  latter,  however, 
being  unworthy  of  their  fathers.  This  kind  of  adoption  was  called 
" geido-yoshi "  or  "arts-adoption." 

It  has  just  been  remarked  that  the  Taiho  Code  fixed  the  lower 
limit  of  the  adopter's  age  at  sixty  for  the  father  and  fifty  for  the 
mother.  But  this  rule  took  another  form  under  the  law  of  the  Toku- 
gawa  Government.  The  limit  of  the  age  was  fixed  as  low  as  seven- 
teen. A  house-head  above  that  age,  or  even  by  special  permission 
under  that  age,  who  had  no  male  issue  was  allowed  to  adopt  a  son, 
in  order  to  prevent  the  extinction  of  a  house  by  his  sudden  death, 
causing  the  escheat  of  his  feudal  property.  A  person  between  the 
ages  of  seventeen  and  fifty  years  could  even  adopt  a  son  on  his  death- 
bed, which  kind  of  adoption  was  called  "kiu-yoshi"  or  "quick 
adoption."  But  after  the  age  of  fifty,  "quick  adoption"  was  not 
allowed,  so  that  he  was  obliged  to  provide  for  the  succession  to  the 
house-headship  early  in  life,  even  if  he  still  had  the  hope  of  having 
male  issue.  The  Taiho  Code  allowed  adoption  only  in  old  age,  be- 
cause it  was  desirable  that  ancestor-worship  should  be  continued 
by  the  nearest  blood  descendants.  The  Tokugawa  Law  allowed 
and  encouraged  adoption  by  young  people,  and  attached  severe 
penalties  to  the  neglect  of  the  precaution  to  provide  for  succession 
early  in  life,  in  order  to  avoid  the  chance  of  a  house  becoming  extinct. 
(3)  Adoption  for  the  purpose  of  obtaining  a  successor  to  property. 

Next  comes  the  time  when  the  notions  of  succession  to  sacra  and 
house-headship  gradually  recede  into  the  background  and  the 
notion  of  property  succession  comes  to  the  fore.  This  stage  is  first 
reached  in  the  new  Civil  Code.  With  the  restoration  of  the  Im- 
perial power  and  the  abolition  of  feudalism,  house-headship  has 
lost  more  than  half  of  its  former  importance.  Fiefs  were  abolished; 
ofiices  and  professions  ceased  to  be  hereditary  privileges  of  house- 
heads;  and  so  far  as  public  law  is  concerned,  house-members  now 
stand  on  an  equal  footing  with  house-heads.  What  remains  of  the 
rights  and  privileges  attaching  to  house-heads  is  enjoyed  within  the 
sphere  of  private  law.   Of  these  the  right  of  enjoying  house-property 


406  COMPARATIVE  LAW 

is  the  most  important,  at  least,  so  far  as  material  interests  are  con- 
cerned. Besides,  house-members  are  now  allowed  to  have  independent 
property  of  their  own,  as  I  have  already  explained,  and  they  may 
adopt  just  in  the  same  way  as  house-heads,  provided  the  consent 
of  the  latter  is  obtained,  (Civil  Code,  art.  750.)  During  the  feudal 
period,  only  house-heads  Avere  allowed  to  adopt,  because  the  object 
of  adoption  was  the  continuation  of  house-headship;  but  now 
adoption  is  no  longer  the  exclusive  privilege  of  house-heads  because 
its  object  is  not  limited  to  obtaining  a  successor  to  house-headship. 
Wills,  although  not  quite  unknown  to  the  old  Japanese  law,  were 
very  rare  in  practice  and  their  place  was  taken  by  adoption.  What 
is  done  in  Europe  and  America  by  will  is  done  in  Japan  by  adoption. 
Instead  of  giving  away  property  to  another  person  by  will,  which 
becomes  effective  after  death,  a  Japanese  takes  another  person  into 
his  house  by  adoption  during  his  lifetime  and  makes  the  latter  the 
expectant  successor  to  his  property. 
(4)  Adoption  for  consolation  in  case  of  childless  marriage. 
This  is  the  onh-  kind  of  adoption  which  has  no  connection  with  the 
house-system,  and  marks  the  last  stage  in  the  history  of  the  law  of 
adoption.  In  Occidental  systems  of  jurisprudence,  will  has  taken 
the  place  of  adoption,  and  the  principal  ground  on  which  this  institu- 
tion is  still  retained  is  for  consolation  in  case  of  childless  marriage. 
Although  the  adopted  child  usually  obtains  the  right  of  succeeding 
to  the  adopter's  property,  this  is  the  effect  of  adoption  and  cannot 
be  regarded  as  the  ground  for  allowing  adoption.  Consolation  in  the 
case  of  a  childless  marriage  constitutes  the  principal  motive  to  this 
act,  and  therefore  most  systems  allow  adoption  only  when  the 
adopter  has  no  children  of  his  own  and  is  of  such  an  age  as  to  pre- 
clude reasonable  expectation  of  any  being  born  to  him.  In  Japan 
also  adoption  often  takes  place  from  the  same  motive,  but  it  cannot 
be  regarded  as  a  legal  ground,  because  the  new  Civil  Code  does  not 
limit  adoption  to  the  case  of  childless  marriage.  The  Japanese  law 
of  adoption  is  now  in  a  transient  state,  and  is  passing  from  the  second 
to  the  third  stage  of  its  development,  but  has  not  yet  entered  the  fourth. 

XVI.  Succession  in  General — The  Evolution  of  the  Law  of 
Succession 

I  think  it  may  be  laid  down  as  a  universal  rule  of  the  evolution 
of  the  law  of  succession  that  it  passes  through  three  stages  of  evolution; 
the  first  stage  is  that  of  the  succession  to  sacra,  the  second  that  of  the 
succession  to  status,  and  the  third  that  of  the  succession  to  property. 
Each  stage  of  development,  however,  did  not  form  a  distinct  period 
in  itself,  but  the  later  was  gradually  evolved  out  of  the  earlier  by  the 
process  of  differentiation.  In  ancient  times  the  duty  of  performing 
and  continuing  the  worship  rested  on  the  head  of  a  house,  and  the 


JAPANESE  CIVIL   CODE  407 

property  of  a  house  belonged  exclusively  to  him.  He  exercised 
authority  over  the  members  of  his  house,  because  he  was  the  con- 
tinuator  of  the  ancestral  sacra,  and  in  one  sense  the  representative 
of  the  ancestor.  He  owned  his  property,  because  it  was  left  by  the 
ancestor,  and  the  authority  and  property  of  a  house-head  rested  on 
the  worship  of  ancestors.  In  those  times  continuation  of  house- 
worship  formed  the  sole  object  of  inheritance.  But  in  the  course 
of  time  the  authority  of  the  house-head,  which  at  first  comprehended 
both  power  over  the  members  of  the  house  and  rights  over  house- 
property,  came  to  be  considered  by  itself  in  law.  Afterwards  the 
two  constituent  elements  of  the  authority  of  the  house-head  grad- 
ually began  to  be  separately  considered,  until  at  last  property  came 
to  be  regarded  as  a  distinct  object  of  inheritance. 

There  are  perhaps  few  systems  of  law  which  can  illustrate  the 
above  proposition  and  indicate  the  process  of  gradual  development 
so  clearly  as  the  Japanese  law  of  succession  to  the  headship  of  a 
house.  In  the  succession  law,  "keishi-ryo,"  of  the  Taiho  Code 
(701  A.  D.)  there  is  a  provision  that  if  a  presumptive  heir  of  a  noble 
family  "is  not  fit  to  succeed  to  the  important  duty"  owing  to  the 
committal  of  crime  or  to  disease,  he  may  be  disinherited  and  another 
presumptive  heir  may  be  substituted.  The  official  commentary  on 
this  code  " Ryo-no-gig6 "  says  "to  succeed  to  the  important  duty" 
means  "to  succeed  a  father  and  inherit  the  sacra,  for  the  matter  of 
worship  is  the  most  important."  It  appears  that  at  this  time  the 
continuation  of  ancestor-worship  was  the  principal  object  of  succes- 
sion. Since  the  Middle  Ages  the  word  " katoku  sozoku"  or  "the  suc- 
cession to  house-authority  "  has  been  used  for  succession,  and  in  the 
feudal  period,  especially  during  the  Tokugawa  Shogunate,  succession 
represented  the  continuity  of  the  status  of  house-headship.  In  later 
times  "katoku,"  which  literally  means  "house-authority,"  was  very 
frequently  used  for  "house-property,"  which  formed  the  object  of 
inheritance,  just  as  the  word  "  familia  "  in  Roman  law  was  often 
used  to  designate  property.  This  transition  of  the  use  of  the  word 
"  katoku  "  indicates  that  the  law  of  succession  was  gradually  pass- 
ing from  the  second  to  the  third  stage  referred  to. 

The  present  law  of  succession,  contained  in  book  v  of  the  Civil 
Code,  shows  that  Japanese  law  is  rapidly  passing  from  the  second 
to  the  third  stage  above  mentioned,  without  losing  its  original  trait 
of  the  succession  to  sacra.  The  new  Civil  Code  recognizes  two  kinds 
of  succession,  —  succession  to  house-headship,  or  "katoku  sozoku," 
and  succession  to  property,  or  "isan  sozoku."  But  there  are  many 
rules  still  remaining  which  show  that  the  foundation  of  the  succession 
to  the  house-headship  is  the  necessity  of  continuing  the  worship 
of  ancestors.    Article  987  contains  the  following  provision: 

"  The  ownership  of  the  records  of  the  genealogy  of  the  house;  the 


408  COMPARATIVE  LAW 

article  used  for  house-worship,  and  the  family  tombs  constitutes  the 
special  right  of  succession  to  the  headship  of  a  house." 

This  important  provision  means  that  those  things  which  are  speci- 
j5ed  therein  form  the  special  objects  of  inheritance.  They  cannot 
be  bequeathed  away,  nor  can  they  be  seized  for  debts. 

Though  the  house  is  no  longer  a  corporation,  as  was  formerly 
the  case,  it  is  still  a  legal  entity  whose  continuance  is  assured  by 
law,  and  does  not  break  up  at  the  death  of  each  house-head.  So 
there  can  be  only  one  heir  to  its  headship,  and  the  new  Civil  Code 
recognizes  many  kinds  of  heirs  to  house-headship  in  order  to  pro- 
vide against  the  contingency  of  the  failure  of  the  heir.  They  are: 
(1)  "the  Legal  Heir";  (2)  "the  Appointed  Heir";  (3)  "the  Chosen 
Heir";  and  (4)  "the  Ascendant  Heir."  The  legal  heir,  who  comes 
first  in  the  order  of  succession,  is  the  lineal  descendant  of  a  house-head, 
who  is  at  the  same  time  a  member  of  his  house.  Among  lineal  descend- 
ants, nearest  kinsmen  are  preferred  to  more  remote,  males  to  females, 
and  legitimate  children  to  illegitimate,  seniors  in  age  being  always 
accorded  priority  when  they  are  equal  in  other  respects.  (Civil  Code, 
art.  970.)  Modern  writers  on  law  usually  give  as  a  reason  for  the  pre- 
ference of  nearer  to  remoter  kinsmen  that  the  order  of  succession  is 
determined  by  the  degree  of  affection  which  the  deceased  is  presumed 
to  have  entertained  toward  his  relatives,  and  also  by  the  presumed 
intention  of  the  person  who  dies  intestate  as  to  the  disposition  of  his 
property.  For  the  preference  of  males  over  females  feudal  reasons 
are  often  given.  These  reasons  also  form  the  principal  basis  of  our 
present  law.  But  the  reasons  for  the  existence  of  the  rule  and  its 
origin  are  not  always  the  same.  Originally,  the  nearest  in  blood  to  the 
ancestors  worshiped  and  their  male  descendants  were  preferred, 
because  they  were  considered  to  be  the  fittest  persons  to  offer  sacri- 
fices to  the  spirits  of  ancestors. 

The  legal  heir  is  heres  necessarius  and  is  not  allowed  to  renounce 
the  succession,  whilst  other  kinds  of  heirs  are  at  liberty  to  accept 
or  renounce  the  inheritance,  or  to  accept  it  with  the  reservation 
that  they  shall  not  be  liable  for  the  debts  of  their  predecessors.  It 
is  the  bounden  duty  of  a  descendant  who  is  the  legal  heir  to  accept 
the  inheritance  and  continue  the  sacra  of  the  house. 

The  house-head  cannot  bequeath  away  from  him  more  than  one 
half  of  the  property  (Civil  Code,  art.  1130),  nor  can  he  disinherit 
him,  unless  there  exist  one  of  the  grounds  mentioned  in  article  975 
of  the  Civil  Code.  The  causes  especially  mentioned  there  are: 

(1)  111  treatment  or  gross  insult  to  the  house-head,  (2)  unfitness 
for  house-rheadship  on  account  of  bodily  or  mental  infirmities,  (3) 
sentence  to  punishment  for  an  offense  of  a  nature  disgraceful  to  the 
name  of  the  house,  and  (4)  interdiction  as  a  spendthrift.  These 
grounds  relate  directly  to  the  house-head's  authority  and  indirectly 


JAPANESE  CIVIL  CODE  409 

to  ancestor-worship  and  the  necessity  of  maintaining  intact  the 
reputation  and  property  of  the  house. 

In  case  there  is  no  legal  presumptive  heir  to  a  house-head,  he 
may  appoint  an  heir,  either  in  his  lifetime  or  by  his  will.  (Civil  Code, 
art.  979.) 

If,  at  the  time  of  the  death  of  a  house-head,  there  is  neither 
a  legal  heir  nor  an  appointed  heir,  the  father  of  the  deceased,  or 
if  there  is  no  father,  or  if  he  is  unable  to  express  his  intention,  the 
mother,  or  if  there  are  no  parents,  or  both  are  unable  to  express 
their  intention,  the  family  council  chooses  an  heir  from  among  the 
members  of  the  house  according  to  the  following  order:  (1)  the 
surviving  wife,  if  she  is  a  "house-daughter";  (2)  brothers;  (3) 
sisters;  (4)  the  surviving  wife  who  is  not  a  house-daughter;  and 
finally  (5)  the  lineal  descendants  of  brothers  and  sisters.  (Civil 
Code,  art.  982.) 

Now,  in  this  also  the  desire  for  preserving  the  blood  of  ancestors 
will  be  seen  from  the  order  in  which  the  heir  is  chosen.  The  sur- 
viving consort  of  the  last  house-head  comes  first  in  the  order  of  suc- 
cession, provided  that  she  is  a  "house-daughter ,"  but  fourth  if  she  is 
not  the  descendant  in  blood  of  an  ancestor  of  the  house. 

If  there  is  neither  a  legal  nor  appointed  nor  chosen  heir,  then 
the  nearest  lineal  ascendant  of  the  last  house-head  succeeds,  males 
being  always  preferred  to  females  Hetween  persons  standing  in  the 
same  degree  of  relationship.    (Civil  Code,  art.  984.) 

If  there  are  no  other  heirs  above  mentioned,  the  family  council 
must  choose  one  from  among  other  relatives  of  the  last  house-head 
or  members  of  his  house,  house-heads  of  branch  house  or  members 
of  principal  or  branch  house.  If  none  of  the  persons  above  mentioned 
be  existing  or  able  to  succeed,  then  as  a  last  resort  the  family  council 
may  choose  an  heir  from  among  other  persons.  (Civil  Code,  art. 
985.) 

From  the  foregoing  enumeration  of  the  various  kinds  of  heirs, 
it  will  be  seen  that  the  law  takes  every  precaution  against  the  con- 
tingency of  a  house  becoming  extinct;  for  with  the  extinction  of  the 
house,  the  worship  of  its  ancestors  would  come  to  an  end. 

XVII.  Property  Succession  —  The  Recognition  of  House-Member's 

Separate  Property 

The  second  kind  of  succession,  namely  property  succession,  is  a  new 
institution  introduced  by  the  new  Civil  Code.  According  to  the  Code, 
property  succession  includes  only  the  succession  to  the  property  of 
a  house-member  on  his  death. 

Before  the  Restoration,  a  house  was  in  a  strict  sense  a  corporation, 
and  a  house-member  could  not  have  separate  property  of  his  own. 
All  he  gained  he  gained  for  the  house-head  or  rather  the  house;  all 


410  COMPARATIVE  LAW 

he  possessed  or  enjoyed  he  possessed  or  enjoyed  by  the  license  of  the 
house-head,  not  as  of  right.  No  question  of  succession  to  the  property 
of  house-members  could  therefore  arise  at  that  time.  But  the  Restor- 
ation completely  changed  this  state  of  things.  It  was  one  of  the 
policies  of  the  new  Imperial  Government  to  appoint  its  officials  not, 
as  before,  on  account  of  birth,  but  on  account  of  personal  merits, 
no  distinction  whatever  being  made  as  to  whether  they  were  house- 
heads  or  house-members.  Formerly  it  was  only  the  house-head  that 
could  hold  public  office.  During  the  first  years  of  the  Imperial  Gov- 
ernment, statesmen  and  soldiers  who  had  served  in  the  cause  of  the 
Restoration  were  rewarded  with  life  or  perpetual  annuities.  But 
many  of  them  were  not  house-heads;  some  were  "inkyo"  or  house- 
members  who  had  become  such  by  abdicating  house-headship; 
others  were  younger  members  of  houses.  Now,  these  annuities  and 
the  salaries  of  civil  and  military  officials,  being  given  by  the  state  for 
personal  services  or  merits,  could  not  be  treated  as  house-property.  Thus 
began  the  independent  and  separate  property  of  house-members,  with 
the  first  great  blow  which  the  old  family  system  received  at  the 
hand  of  the  Imperial  Government.  It  is  interesting  to  note  that  this 
is  exactly  what  happened  in  the  beginning  of  the  Roman  Empire, 
when  castrense  peculium  of  -filiusfamilias  was  recognized  for  military 
services,  and  three  centuries  afterward  qvxisi-castrense  peculium  for 
civil  services. 

The  issue  of  a  law  in  1872  which  abolished  the  prohibition  of  the 
sale  of  land  and  granted  title-deeds  to  landowners,  the  issue  in 
the  following  year  of  the  government  bonds  for  public  loans,  and  the 
establishment  of  joint-stock  companies  and  savings-banks  mark  the 
next  step  in  the  development  of  the  separate  property  of  house- 
members.  The  courts  of  law  began  to  recognize  house-members' 
separate  property  in  the  title-deeds,  bonds,  stocks,  debentures,  or 
savings  which  they  held  in  their  own  names,  and  thus  individual  pro- 
perty began  to  grow  up  by  the  side  of  house-property.  But  on  the  other 
hand,  a  law  (no.  275)  was  passed  in  1872  to  the  effect  that  the 
house-head  should  not  be  liable  for  the  debts  contracted  by  house- 
members,  unless  he  became  a  surety  to  the  contract. 

Although  the  separate  property  of  house-members  was  thus 
established,  the  rule  of  succession  was  not  settled  until  the  pro- 
mulgation of  the  new  Civil  Code.  As  a  rule  the  property  left  by 
a  deceased  house-member  went  to  the  house-head.  But  here  again 
the  Code  took  a  decided  step  and  gave  the  right  of  succession  to  the 
nearest  descendants  equally,  whether  they  were  males  or  females  or 
whether  they  were  in  the  same  house  with  the  deceased  or  not,  the  right 
of  representation  being  always  given  to  the  children  of  the  pre- 
deceased descendant.  After  descendants  comes  the  consort;  next  in 
order,  the  lineal  ascendant;  and  as  the  last  successor,  the  house-head. 


JAPANESE  CIVIL   CODE  411 

Other  rules  relating  to  this  kind  of  succession  do  not  differ  much  from 
those  we  find  in  Western  countries. 

By  comparing  the  above-mentioned  two  kinds  of  succession,  we 
shall  notice  that  they  present  a  remarkable  contrast  and  indicate 
the  transient  stage  in  which  the  Japanese  law  of  succession  finds 
itself.  The  rules  relating  to  succession  to  house-headship  rest  chiefly 
upon  indigenous  elements,  while  those  relating  to  succession  to  pro- 
perty are  based  principally  upon  Western  ideas. 

XVIII.  Succession  Inter  Vivos 

Another  characteristic  of  the  Japanese  succession  law  is  the 
existence  of  succession  inter  vivos,  side  by  side  with  succession 
mortis  causa.  The  succession  which  arises  during  the  lifetime  of  the 
person  succeeded  takes  place  only  with  reference  to  succession  to 
house-headship;  for  house-headship  may  come  to  an  end  either 
by  a  house-head's  death  or  the  loss  of  house-headship  during  his  life- 
time.    Succession  inter  vivos  takes  place  in  the  following  cases : 

I.  "  Inkyo  "  or  abdication  of  house-headship. 
II.  Loss  of  nationality  by  a  house-head. 

III.  The  marriage  of  a  female  house-head. 

IV.  The  divorce  of  a  husband  who  has  married  a  female  house-head. 
V.  When  a  house-head  leaves  the  house  in  consequence  of  the 

invalidation  of  his  marriage  or  adoption. 

I  will  explain  each  of  the  causes  of  succession  inter  vivos  in  order. 
1.  "  Inkyo  "  or  abdication  of  house-headship. 

House-headship  is  not  a  lifelong  authority.  It  may  be  lost 
in  several  ways,  the  most  usual  of  which  is  its  abdication  or 
"inkyo,"  which  literally  means  "living  in  retirement."  The 
origin  of  this  custom  has  been  sometimes  ascribed  to  Buddhism, 
but  I  have  shown  in  a  work  especially  devoted  to  this  subject 
(Inkyo-ron,  or  Treatise  on  Abdication,  1891)  that  this  institution 
was  originally  derived  from  China,  and  developed  among  us 
by  the  influence  of  Buddhism  and  feudalism.  The  abdication 
of  house-headship  may  be  classified  with  reference  to  its  causes 
under  the  following  four  heads;  namely,  (1)  Religious  Abdica- 
tion, (2)  Political  Abdication,  (3)  Judicial  Abdication,  and  (4) 
Physiological  Abdication. 
(1)   Rehgious  abdication. 

After  the  introduction  of  Buddhism  the  practice  gradually 
grew  up,  among  higher  classes,  of  withdrawing  from  active 
life  when  any  person  attained  "  the  age  of  retirement, "  which 
was  seventy  according  to  the  Chinese  Ritual  Code,  and  closing 
his  days  in  religious  devotion  as  a  hermit  or  priest.  Our  history 
abounds  in  instances  where  ministers  of  state  tendered  their 


412  COMPARATIVE   LAW 

resignations  for  the  purpose  of  devoting  the  rest  of  their  lives 
to  rehgious  practice.  As  I  have  already  said,  house-headship 
was  rather  an  institution  of  public  law  than  of  private  law,  and 
the  resignation  of  office  iLSually  brought  with  it  the  loss  of  house- 
headship.  In  later  times  the  middle  and  lower  classes  began  to 
imitate  the  example  set  by  the  heads  of  noble  families,  until 
it  has  become  a  general  custom  among  the  people.  Until  recently 
it  was  a  very  common  practice  for  retired  persons  to  shave 
their  heads,  like  Buddhist  priests,  in  token  of  their  having  given 
up  secular  business  and  of  having  embraced  the  religious  life. 
It  was  for  this  reason  that  the  designation  of  "  niudo-inkyo  "  or 
"priestly  retirement"  was  employed  for  this  kind  of  abdication. 
This  practice  is  very  common  among  the  Hindus  where  life  is 
distributed  into  three  periods;  namely,  the  student,  house- 
holder, and  ascetic  periods.  Minute  regulations  as  to  the  life  of 
the  ascetic  are  contained  in  Hindu  law-books,  especially  in  the 
sixth  chapter  of  the  Code  of  Manu.  Entering  into  a  monastery 
seems  to  have  had  the  same  effect  as  death  in  the  early  Germanic 
and  English  laws  (Young's  Anglo-Saxon  Family  Law,  Co.  Litt, 
133,  Blaxland's  Codex  Legum  Anglicanarum,  p.  217)  and  in  the 
French  law  before  the  Revolution  (Zachariae,  Franz.  Civilrecht, 
sec.  162),  but  since  the  abolition  of  civil  death  in  modern  legal 
S3^stems  succession  inter  vivos  does  not  occur  in  European 
families  of  law. 

(2)  Political  abdication. 

From  an  early  period  of  our  history,  it  was  very  common 
for  the  upper  and  middle  classes  to  resort  to  abdication  for 
various  political  reasons.  Sometimes  it  was  made  use  of  by 
unscrupulous  ministers  of  state  or  influential  servants  of  dai- 
mios  to  deprive  masters  of  their  power,  and  put  other  persons, 
perhaps  puppets,  in  their  places;  sometimes,  house-heads 
retired  in  order  to  shift  responsibilities  to  other  persons'  shoulders 
and  wield  real  power  themselves,  or  pull  strings  from  behind  the 
curtain;  or  sometimes  they  gave  up  the  worldly  life  and  led 
the  ascetic  life  out  of  political  discontent  or  disappointment. 

(3)  Legal  abdication. 

I  mean  by  legal  abdication  the  compulsory  loss  of  house-head- 
ship by  way  of  punishment  or  atonement  for  a  crime  or  other 
grave  fault.  Cases  occurred  very  frequently  during  the  feudal 
times,  especially  under  the  Tokugawa  Shogunate,  in  which 
a  house-head  was  sentenced  or  ordered  to  abdicate  as  a  punish- 
ment for  his  offense.  Particular  names  have  been  given  to  the 
kind  of  abdication,  such  as  "zaikwa-inkyo,"  "or  penal  abdica- 
tion"; or  "chikkyo-inkyo,"  or  "confinement  abdication";  or 
"  tsutsushimi-inkyo,"  or  "  reprimand  abdication."    House-heads 


JAPANESE  CIVIL   CODE  413 

were  also  very  often  forced  to  abdicate  by  the  resolution  of  family 
councils  on  account  of  their  moral  depravity,  which  made  them 
unfit  for  the  duties  of  house-headship.  Even  in  the  beginning 
of  the  present  reign,  this  kind  of  abdication  continued;  and 
article  14  of  the  Criminal  Code  of  1873  provided  that  kwazoku 
and  shizoku,  or  nobles  and  samurais  who  were  guilty  of  crimes 
involving  grave  moral  depravity,  should  be  sentenced  to  the 
loss  of  house-headship,  together  with  their  privileges. 
(4)   Physiological  abdication. 

The  decay  of  physical  or  mental  power  either  on  account  of 
old  age  or  ill  health  is  the  most  common  cause  of  abdication. 
Manu  says:  "  When  a  householder  sees  his  skin  wrinkled,  and  his 
hair  white,  and  the  sons  of  his  sons,  then  he  may  resort  to  the 
forest. "  (Manu,  vi,  2.)  As  house-headship  was  an  institution 
of  public  law  as  well  as  of  private  law,  it  involved  not  only  power 
over  the  house-members,  but  also  many  duties  toward  the  state, 
besides  duties  and  responsibilities  toward  the  house-members 
which  were  incumbent  upon  that  position.  So  house-heads  were 
often  obliged  to  retire  from  the  active  duties  of  family  life  when 
their  age  or  state  of  health  made  them  unfit  for  that  position. 
This  was  especially  the  case  with  the  samurai  class  during  the 
feudal  period,  when  physical  power  was  especially  necessary  for 
the  discharge  of  military  duties.  It  is  for  this  reason  that  abdica- 
tion came  to  be  regarded  as  an  important  and  necessary  institu- 
tion, and  laws  relating  to  it  made  great  progress  under  the  military 
regime  of  feudalism. 

The  rule  with  regard  to  the  age  at  which  a  house-head  was 
allowed  to  abdicate  was  seventy  before  the  establishment  of 
the  feudal  system,  which  was  the  age  of  retirement  according 
to  the  Chinese  Ceremonial  Code  (@|£).  But  this  age  was 
lowered  under  feudalism  and  fifty  was  fixed  as  the  lowest  limit 
of  the  age  at  which  a  house-head  was  allowed  to  abdicate 
without  adducing  any  other  reason.  But  since  the  abolition 
of  feudalism  and  the  establishment  of  the  conscription  system, 
which  imposes  military  duty  irrespective  of  a  man's  position  in 
the  house,  there  is  no  need  to  keep  this  low  limit  of  age.  The 
new  Code  raised  it  again  and  fixed  it  at  sixty;  so  that  there  have 
been  three  changes  as  to  the  age  of  retirement,  the  first  being 
seventy,  the  second  fifty,  and  the  third  sixty. 

According  to  the  new  Code,  a  house-head  may  abdicate  when 
he  has  attained  the  age  of  sixty,  but  in  case  of  a  female  house- 
head,  she  may  abdicate  irrespective  of  her  age.  (Civil  Code, 
arts.  752,  755.)  In  all  other  cases  the  permission  of  a  court 
of  law  is  necessary.  Such  permission  is  given  if  a  house-head  is 
unable  to  continue  the  management  of  the  house  owing  to  one 


414  COMPARATIVE  LAW 

of  the  following  causes;  namely,  sickness,  the  necessity  of  suc- 
ceeding as  heir  to  the  headship  of  the  main  branch  of  the  family, 
or  of  resuscitating  it,  the  desire  to  enter  another  house  by  mar- 
riage, or  other  unavoidable  causes.  (Civil  Code,  arts.  753,  784.) 
In  both  these  cases  there  must  always  be  an  heir  to  succeed  him 
in  the  headship  of  the  house;  for  nobody  but  a  person  who  has 
founded  a  new  house  may  abolish  it,  as  the  abolition  of  a  house 
would  bring  with  it,  in  other  cases,  the  extinction  of  the  worship 
of  the  ancestors.   (Civil  Code,  arts.  762,  763.) 

II.  Loss  of  nationality. 

The  house-system  is  a  national  institution,  and  foreigners  not 
being  considered  as  belonging  to  any  house,  the  house-headship 
necessarily  comes  to  an  end  when  a  house-head  loses  his  nation- 
ality, by  naturalization  or  other  causes  mentioned  in  the  law  of 
nationality  (no.  66,  1899);  just  as  a  Roman  paterfamilias  lost 
his  patria  potestas  on  account  of  the  loss  of  citizenship  by  under- 
going media  capitis  diminutio. 

III.  The  marriage  of  a  female  house-head. 

According  to  article  736  of  the  Civil  Code,  if  a  female  house- 
head  marries,  the  husband  enters  the  house  of  his  wife,  instead 
of  the  wife's  entering  the  husband's  house  according  to  the 
usual  rule,  and  at  once  becomes  the  house-head,  unless  the 
parties  concerned  expressed  a  contrary  intention  at  the  time 
of  marriage.  Thus  succession  inter  vivos  to  the  house-headship 
occurs  in  case  of  the  marriage  of  a  female  house-head. 

IV.  The  divorce  of  a  husband  who  has  married  a  female  house- 
head. 

As  the  husband  entered  the  house  and  has  become  the  house- 
head  in  consequence  of  the  marriage,  he  leaves  the  house  by 
divorce,  and  at  the  same  time  loses  the  house-headship.  Thus 
divorce  in  this  case  becomes  a  cause  of  succession  inter  vivos. 

V.  Invalidation  of  marriage  or  adoption. 

If  a  man  who  married  a  female  house-head,  or  an  adopted 
son  or  daughter  has  become  a  house-head,  and  the  marriage  or 
the  adoption  is  invalidated  for  one  of  the  causes  mentioned 
in  the  Code,  the  husband  or  the  adopted  child  leaves  the  house, 
and  the  house-headship  is  lost.  In  this  case,  as  the  invalidation 
has  no  retrospective  effect,  the  preceding  house-head,  though 
alive,  such  as  the  wife  or  the  abdicated  adoptive  father,  does 
not  recover  the  house-headship  as  if  there  had  been  no  mar- 
riage or  adoption,  but  the  rules  of  succession  apply  just  as  in  the 
case  of  death. 
The  above  enumeration  of  the  causes  will  show  that  succession 

inter  vivos,  which  is  not  usually  found  in  modern  laws,  occurs  very 

frequently  under  the  present  Japanese  law. 


JAPANESE  CIVIL  CODE  415 

XIX.   Conclusion 

I  hope  I  have  been  able  to  show,  to  some  extent  at  least,  that  the 
new  Japanese  Civil  Code  furnishes  valuable  materials  for  students 
of  historical  and  comparative  jurisprudence.  The  codification  was 
the  result  of  the  great  political  and  social  revolutions  which  took 
place  within  a  comparatively  short  period.  The  Code  embodies  in 
itself  archaic  and  modern  elements  on  the  one  hand,  and  Eastern 
and  Western  elements  on  the  other.  Within  the  past  thirty  years 
Japanese  law  has  passed  from  the  Chinese  family  of  law  to  the 
European  family;  the  notion  of  right  was  introduced;  woman's 
position  was  raised  from  a  condition  of  total  subjection  to  one  of 
equality  with  man,  so  far  as  private  rights  are  concerned;  the  status 
of  foreigners  advanced  from  the  stage  of  enmity  to  that  of  equality 
with  citizens;  the  family  system  was  greatly  modified;  the  separate 
property  of  house-members  began  to  be  recognized;  and  property 
succession  has  come  to  exist  side  by  side  with  the  succession  of  house- 
headship. 

Comparing  the  new  Japanese  Civil  Code  with  Western  codes,  we 
observe  great  similarity  between  them  in  the  first  three  books 
relating  to  general  provisions,  real  rights,  and  obligations  respect- 
ively, but  great  difference  in  the  last  two,  which  relate  to  family  and 
succession.  Of  the  first  three  books,  the  law  of  obligations  may  be 
said  to  be  entirely  Occidental.  That  part  of  law  may  indeed  be  said 
to  be  in  a  sense  cosmopolitan,  the  laws  of  different  countries  exhibit- 
ing a  relatively  small  amount  of  variation  in  this  regard.  The  law 
of  obligations,  therefore,  has  the  greatest  propagating  capacity  and 
is  generally  first  received  in  other  countries.  Next  comes  the  law 
relating  to  movables.  But  land  is  usually  so  bound  up  with  the  public 
polic}'^  and  local  conditions  of  a  country  that  we  usually  find  much 
divergence  in  the  laws  relating  to  immovables  in  different  countries. 
The  laws  relating  to  succession  and  family,  depending,  as  they  do, 
upon  the  national  character,  religion,  history,  traditions,  and  cus- 
toms, show  the  least  capacity  for  assimilation.  So  the  usual  order 
of  assimilation,  or  reception  of  foreign  laws  is,  (1)  law  of  obligation, 
(2)  law  of  movables,  (3)  law  of  immovables,  (4)  law  of  succession 
and  family, 

I  have  not  touched  upon  those  parts  of  the  Civil  Code  which 
relate  to  obligations  and  rights  in  rem,  because  the  rules  relating 
to  these  parts  are  mostly  derived  from  Western  jurisprudence  and 
will  present  little  that  is  novel  to  a  European  or  American  audience. 
I  have  confined  my  remarks,  therefore,  to  those  parts  in  which  the 
indigenous  element  is  usually  most  persistent.  I  have  shown  that 
even  in  these,  we  have  made  great  reforms  since  the  opening  of  the 
country  to  foreign  intercourse.   During  the  last  thirty  years  we  have 


416  COMPARATIVE  LAW 

been  trying  to  adopt  from  Western  civilization  whatever  seemed  to 
us  best  fitted  for  the  progress  of  the  country. 

We  now  possess  a  Civil  Code  based  upon  the  most  advanced 
principles  of  Western  jurisprudence.  But  the  code  is  only  a  frame- 
work or  skeleton  of  law.  What  supplies  flesh,  blood,  and  sinews  to 
it  is  the  integrity  and  learning  of  the  Bench  and  the  Bar  and  the 
law-abiding  habit  of  the  people.  But  above  all,  the  fountain-head 
of  legal  improvement  is  legal  science.  Law  is  national  or  territorial, 
but  the  science  of  law  is  universal,  and  is  not  confined  within  the 
bounds  of  any  state.  We  have  profited  in  the  past  by  the  work  of 
scientific  jurists  of  the  West,  and  we  must  look  in  the  future  to  the 
mutual  assistance  and  cooperation  of  the  scientific  brotherhood  of 
the  world. 


THE   LATEST  ORGANIZATION   OF   POPULAR    SUFFRAGE 

BY  ALFRED    NERINCX 

[Alfred  Nerincx,  Professor  of  Constitutional  Law,  University  of  Louvain,  Belgium, 
since  1899.  b.  Brussells,  Belgium,  1872.  Ph.B.  Namur  College,  Belgium; 
LL.D.  University  of  Louvain;  Polit.  and  Soc.  Sci.  D.  University  of  Louvain; 
Hon.  LL.D.  Glasgow  University;  Laureate  of  the  Institut  de  France.  Author 
of  The  Judiciary  Organization  of  the  United  States.] 

Even  a  mere  outline  of  the  history  of  popular  suffrage,  as  a  study 
of  comparative  law  and  political  institutions,  could  hardly  be  com- 
pressed into  the  short  space  of  an  hour.  Moreover,  the  subject  has 
been  treated  so  often  and  so  adequately  by  students  of  political 
science  both  in  Europe  and  in  America,  that  there  is  no  necessity 
for  taking  it  up  again  as  a  whole. 

But  there  is  one  remarkable  fact  in  that  history,  upon  which  I 
should  like  to  dwell  somewhat  to-day,  because  it  affords  a  striking 
contrast  with  the  organization  which  I  have  undertaken  to  explain 
briefly  before  this  Congress. 

That  fact  is  the  general  contradiction  existing  between  the  theory 
and  practice  of  popular  suffrage  in  all  the  forms  of  representative 
government  where  a  very  highly  organized  method  of  suffrage  is 
not  yet  enforced,  that  is,  almost  everywhere. 

Whether  one  considers  the  people  who  still  retain  the  limited 
suffrage,  after  the  English  type,  or  the  countries  where  universal 
suffrage  obtains  as  in  France  and  in  the  United  States,  it  is  re- 
markable that,  whereas  the  law  of  the  land  grants  to  every 
individual  voter  the  same  political  power  in  theory,  yet,  in  fact, 
absolute  equality  is  hardly  to  be  found  anywhere,  either  between 
citizens  belonging  to  different  constituencies,  or  between  voters 
belonging  to  the  same  classes. 

One  country  distributes  parliamentary  seats  on  the  lines  of  ancient 
historical  traditions,  without  the  least  regard  for  area  or  population. 
Another  has  followed  political  considerations  absolutely  irrespective 
of  the  equality  of  citizens.  In  another  still,  political  ethics  have 
allowed  the  parties  or  even  the  legislature  to  accomplish  what  con- 
stitutions seemed  to  forbid.  As  a  rule  rural  districts  have  been 
better  provided  for  than  urban  constituencies.  The  larger  industrial 
communities  with  suspiciously  radical  tendencies  remain  generally 
deprived  of  part  of  the  representation  which,  in  theory  at  least, 
they  ought  to  have.  Numbers  of  citizens,  even  the  majority  of  them 
in  some  parts  of  the  United  States,  are  being  disfranchised  by  recent 


418  COMPARATIVE  LAW 

constitutional  amendments,  in  the  very  face,  as  it  looks,  of  an  ex- 
press provision  of  the  Federal  Constitution. 

Yet  everywhere  public  opinion  shows  a  wonderful  leniency  toward 
the  politicians  who  manipulate  the  polls  and  falsify  the  results, 
before  or  after  the  contest.  Most  of  the  frauds  are  well  known;  the 
statutes  hurl  all  sorts  of  punishments  on  the  culprits,  but  very 
often  they  go  scot  free;  sometimes  even  their  devices  receive  the 
official  indorsement  of  the  unprincipled  majority  which  has  profited 
by  them,  Happy  indeed  are  the  countries  where  governmental 
pressure  and  administrative  corruption  are  not  yet  allowed  to  exist 
upon  those  evils !  What  does  that  show? 

It  shows  that,  even  when  the  law  of  the  land  most  emphatically 
asserts  the  absolute  equivalence  of  all  citizens  in  politics,  public 
opinion,  on  the  contrary,  instinctively  feels,  although  it  is  sometimes 
loath  to  own  it,  that  such  a  theory  is  utterly  false,  that  it  has  no 
practical  foundation,  and  that  its  literal  application,  far  from  being 
in  any  way  desirable,  would  probably  be  most  dangerous  for  the 
political  balance  of  the  country.  Public  opinion,  passionately  attached 
to  political  equality,  because  it  mistakes  it  for  a  necessary  conse- 
quence of  individual  liberty,  has  a  clear  sense,  however,  of  its  perils, 
and  it  tolerates,  like  necessary  evils,  the  more  or  less  clever  devices, 
the  more  or  less  unfair  tricks  which  may,  to  a  certain  extent,  insure 
the  general  interest  which  such  a  theory  must  inevitably  jeopardize. 

However,  there  is  one  country  which,  on  the  occasion  of  her 
political  reforms,  has  plainly  sanctioned  in  her  electoral  legislation 
this  evident  truth;  namely,  that  all  men  do  not  possess  the  same 
value  from  the  political  point  of  view. 

That  country  is  Belgium.  And  if  I  take  it  as  my  subject  before 
this  meeting,  it  is  not  merely  out  of  patriotic  pride,  a  feeling 
which  would  hardly  deserve  the  consideration  of  an  assembly  of 
learned  scientists,  but  it  is  because  of  the  unique  scientific  interest 
which  attaches  itself  to  the  political  experiments  which  Belgium 
has  just  made  within  the  last  ten  years,  in  the  vanguard,  I  might 
say,  of  the  peoples  who  have  adopted  the  parliamentary  system. 

Belgium  was  the  first  country  to  attempt  on  a  large  scale  reforms 
which  had  long  been  recommended  by  the  masters  of  political 
science,  and  she  accomplished  them  at  a  time  when  most  of  the 
statesmen,  some  even  in  Belgium,  branded  them  as  practically 
impossible  and  treated  them  as  the  pious  dreams  of  mere  theoretical 
scientists.  Practical  politicians  will  kindly  allow  me  to  remind  this 
audience  that  the  authors  of  those  daring  and  successful  reforms 
both  belonged  to  an  academical  faculty.^ 

*  The  late  Professor  Alb.  Nyssens,  Member  of  Parliament  and  Minister  of 
Labor,  and  Professor  Jules  van  den  Heuvel,  Minister  of  Justice,  both  eminent 
members  of  the  Faculty  of  Law  of  the  University  of  Louvain. 


POPULAR  SUFFRAGE    '  419 

These  reforms  are  the  organization  of  universal  suffrage  in  the 
highest  degree  by  those  factors  calculated  to  palliate  in  a  large 
measure  the  greatest  danger  of  popular  contests;  namely,  the 
triumph  of  the  boisterous  elements  and  the  radical  tendencies  of  an 
active  and  audacious  minority  over  the  conservative  feelings  of  a 
majority  calm,  timid,  or  careless. 

Those  three  factors  are  plural  suffrage,  proportional  representation, 
and  compulsory  voting. 

I  shall  expound  them  briefly,  without  much  detail,  in  order  to 
spare  some  time  for  the  supplemental  questions  which  may  arise  in 
a  discussion  hereafter. 

Plural  suffrage  means  the  attribution  to  every  voter  of  an  in- 
fluence, a  voting  power,  corresponding  as  exactly  as  possible  to  the 
value  which  every  individual  citizen  represents  for  the  political 
organization  of  the  community,  under  the  system  of  universal 
suffrage. 

Whereas  the  voter  of  twenty-five  years  of  age  has  a  single  vote, 
one  supplementary  vote  is  allotted  to  the  head  of  a  family  at  the  age 
of  thirty-five,  provided  he  has  settled  his  family  in  a  certain  degree 
of  stability  and  comfort;  a  condition  which  appears  when  he  pays 
a  small  house-tax,  instead  of  merely  renting  a  furnished  room. 

Another  supplementary  vote  belongs  to  the  owner  of  some  property 
either  of  real  property  worth  $400  (2000  francs)  or  of  registered 
government  bonds  bringing  an  income  of  $20  (100  francs)  a  year. 
The  very  nature  of  such  property  clearly  enhances  the  character,  at 
the  same  time  democratic  and  conservative,  of  that  reform. 

Finally  another  plural  suffrage,  in  the  shape  of  two  additional 
votes,  is  granted  to  the  holders  of  an  a*cademic  degree  and  to  the 
voters  who,  without  holding  such  degree,  occupy  a  station  in  life 
which  implies  that  their  education  is  equal  to  that  which  such  degree 
avers. 

Altogether,  considering  the  voters  as  so  many  members  of  a  general 
meeting  of  the  shareholders  of  the  great  national  concern,  one  may 
say  that  the  Belgian  suffrage  law  gives  to  each  of  them  a  voting 
power  equal  either  to  the  assets  which  every  one  owns  in  the  busi- 
ness, —  in  his  capacity  of  citizen,  of  family  man,  or  of  property 
holder,  —  or  to  the  value  of  the  services  which  he  may  render  by  the 
enlightened  vote  of  an  educated  man. 

But  in  the  opinion  of  its  authors,  the  electoral  reform  of  1893 
in  Belgium  was  to  be  just  as  democratic  as  it  was  conservative.  It 
coincided  with  a  great  extension  of  the  suffrage,  formerly  strictly 
limited,  and  it  would  have  been  unworthy  of  the  Belgian  statesmen 
to  take  back  on  the  one  hand  that  which  they  were  giving  on  the 
other;  that  is,  of  infinitely  increasing  the  influence  of  the  upper 
classes  by  drowning,  as  it  were,  the  vote  of  the  popular  masses. 


420  COMPARATIVE  LAW 

Therefore  it  was  enacted  that  nobody  should  enjoy  more  than  three 
votes,  no  matter  how  many  titles  he  might  have  to  claim  supplement- 
ary votes.  In  that  way  is  plural  suffrage  at  the  same  time  a  wisely 
conservative  and  a  truly  democratic  institution  —  conservative, 
because  it  strengthens  the  influence  of  the  more  balanced,  the  more 
useful,  and  the  more  respectable  elements  of  society  in  any  country; 
democratic,  since  the  moderation  of  its  requirements  allows  to  any 
man  who  loves  foresight  and  economy  to  acquire  at  a  comparatively 
early  period  of  his  life  the  fullness  of  the  voting  power  recognized 
to  any  one  in  the  community. 

The  next  reform  introduced  into  the  Belgian  organization  of  suf- 
frage, quite  recently,  in  1899-1900,  is  a  little  more  intricate:  it  is 
the  proportional  representation  of  parties,  and  even  more  accurately 
speaking,  of  the  majority  and  of  the  principal  minorities  of  the 
body  politic. 

It  combines  two  principles,  generally  admitted  by  the  legal  theory 
of  most  countries,  but  which  we  find  carried  out  in  Belgium  as 
nowhere  else  in  a  systematic  way,  mathematically  and  with  the 
strictest  accuracy. 

The  first  of  these  principles  is  the  absolute  equivalence  of  the 
voting  power  of  the  citizens,  subject  of  course  to  the  differences  of 
the  plural  suffrage,  but  irrespective  of  the  size  and  population  of  the 
parliamentary  constituencies  in  which  the  citizens  exercise  their 
right,  or  better,  their  political  function  of  suffrage. 

To  this  end  the  system  combines  uninominal  voting  with  list 
voting  (scrutinde  liste)  — the  adoption  of  the  latter  being  necessary  for 
the  working  out  of  a  proportional  distribution  of  the  seats  amongst 
three  or  four  parties  —  in  such  a  way  that  a  voter  may  actually  vote 
for  one  seat  only,  no  matter  whether  his  constituency  elects  twenty 
members  or  only  three  or  four.  It  is  therefore  strictly  true  to  say 
that  in  Belgium  an  individual  voter,  plural  or  otherwise,  has  just 
as  much  influence,  and  no  more,  at  the  polls  as  any  other  voter, 
plural  or  otherwise,  notwithstanding  that  the  one  may  belong  to  a 
large  constituency  of  perhaps  one  million  inhabitants  and  the  other 
one  to  a  small  one  of  scarcely  one  hundred  thousand. 

The  second  principle  is  the  adequate  representation  of  all  the 
important  sections  of  public  opinion,  no  longer  according  to  the 
somewhat  rough  methods  of  the  majority  or  of  the  plurality  rule, 
but  in  accordance  with  the  nicely  balanced  system  of  proportional 
representation,  which  guarantees  to  the  leading  parties  on  both 
sides  the  possession  of  a  number  of  seats  strictly  proportionate  to  the 
number  of  votes  which  each  party  can  poll. 

To  that  end,  the  returning  officers  in  each  constituency  first 
make  up  for  each  list  of  candidates  the  grand  total  of  the  votes 
which  it  has  received.   Such  sum  is  called  the  party's  electoral  figure. 


POPULAR  SUFFRAGE  421 

Then  they  seek  for  these  various  electoral  figures  a  common  divisor, 
in  connection  with  the  number  of  seats  to  be  apportioned  in  the 
particular  constituency;  it  is  called  the  electoral  divisor,  or  briefly 
the  quorum,  because  it  represents  exactly  the  number  of  votes 
which  will  qualify  for  one  seat  in  the  constituency. 

Next  comes  the  allotment  of  seats.  Each  list  of  candidates  receives 
a  number  of  them  equal  to  the  result  of  the  division  of  its  electoral 
figure,  or  grand  total,  by  the  quorum.  It  is  absolutely  certain,  under 
this  method,  that  any  ticket  of  which  the  grand  total  vote,  that  is, 
the  popularity  at  the  polls,  reaches  the  quorum  level  once  or  several 
times,  shall  carry  one  or  more  seats.  The  only  tickets  to  be  excluded 
from  the  apportionment  are  those  of  factions  apparently  too  eccen- 
tric to  obtain  the  necessary  votes  for  a  single  seat.  It  is  only  fair, 
for  local  or  personal  cliques  are  not  to  be  reckoned  as  political  parties. 

However,  most  of  the  tickets  are  Ukely  to  include  a  number  of 
candidates  somewhat  in  excess  of  the  number  of  seats  allotted  to  the 
several  parties,  and  the  problem  arises  of  how  to  confer  the  seats 
in  order  once  more  to  represent  proportionally  the  various  shades 
of  sentiment  which  generally  exist  within  a  party,  —  the  more  likely 
so  if  a  party  may  claim  to  be  very  large  and  really  representative  of 
a  national  majority. 

The  law,  therefore,  enacts  that  poUtical  parties  shall  nominate  their 
candidates  on  the  ticket  in  a  preferential  order,  which  they  may 
determine  as  they  please,  and  that  the  voters  are  at  liberty  either  to 
adopt  and  ratify,  or  to  contradict  and  upset  the  said  preferential 
order  by  the  manner  of  their  vote. 

The  combination  is  at  once  clever  and  simple.  The  voter  who  wishes 
to  indorse  the  preferential  order  simply  marks  his  vote  above  the 
ticket,  and  hands  in  a  straight  ticket  or  vote  de  lists.  He,  on  the 
contrary,  who  wishes  to  signify  his  preference  for  any  given  can- 
didate and  to  advance  him  to  the  first  rank  on  the  ticket,  marks  his 
vote  in  the  margin  of  the  particular  candidate's  name.  His  vote  is 
called  a  preferential  vote. 

Both  the  straight  vote  and  the  preferential  vote  go  to  make  up 
the  ticket's  grand  total  or  electoral  fi^re,  for  they  are  both  undoubt- 
edly in  favor  of  the  party  as  a  whole. 

After  making  the  separate  count  of  the  straight  votes  and  the 
preferential  votes  on  each  ticket,  for  each  name,  the  retuming-officers 
allot  the  seats  to  the  candidates  who  have  won  the  largest  vote  in 
each  ticket. 

First  in  rank  are  the  names  indorsed  by  the  mass  of  straight 
tickets:  each  of  them  is  to  receive  from  it  a  number  of  votes  which, 
added  to  his  own  preferential  vote,  will  secure  for  him  the  necessary 
quorum.  It  is  only  fair,  after  the  indorsement  of  the  order  of 
candidates  by  the  bulk  of  the  party.     Such  devolution  of  straight 


422  COMPARATIVE  LAW 

ticket  votes  continues  in  succession  on  the  following  candidates, 
until  there  are  no  more  straight  votes  available. 

Then  a  mere  comparison  of  figures  will  determine  the  lucky 
owners  of  the  seats;  namely,  those  who  have  reached  the  quorum, 
either  by  the  devolution  of  the  straight  votes  or  by  the  accumulation 
of  a  sufficient  number  of  preferential  votes. 

Once  more  the  only  ones  to  be  discarded  will  be  the  names  not 
popular  enough  to  secure  the  minimum  of  votes  necessary  to  acquire 
a  single  seat. 

Proportional  representation  has  been  likened  rather  aptly  to  a 
photographic  proceeding,  I  mean,  a  photograph  without  artificial 
corrections.  Somebody  also  appropriately  called  it  an  electoral 
metre,  which  could  not  possibly  show  wrong  indications  of  public 
opinion,  because  it  works  merely  by  the  rules  of  the  most  exact  of 
sciences;  and  granted  that  it  does  not  preclude  the  possibility  of 
errors  at  the  hands  of  an  unscrupulous  operator  or  of  an  unskilled 
calculator,  there  is  this,  however,  for  it,  that  it  makes  an  error 
so  easily  tangible  and  so  palpably  evident  that  it  may  well  be  said 
to  discourage  any  disposition  to  tamper  with  the  ballot-boxes  or  to 
"  fix  the  returns  "  in  any  way. 

If  it  looks  rather  intricate  and  cumbersome  at  first  sight;  —  not 
unlike  all  arithmetical  problems  in  their  exposition,  —  yet  the 
system  works  in  a  perfectly  clear  and  smooth  way  when  applied  to 
figures,  because  it  requires  only  elementary  calculations. 

The  justification  —  one  might  almost  say  the  necessity — of  these 
two  reforms  lies  in  the  modern  conception  of  suffrage.  The  old 
theory  is  generally  left  aside  to-day,  which  considered  the  suffrage  as 
an  inborn  right,  and  it  is  almost  everywhere  looked  upon  as  a  func- 
tion, as  a  duty  thrust  upon  the  citizen  in  the  interest  of  the  whole 
community  to  which  he  belongs. 

Hence  it  is  fair  that  this  civil  mandate  be  intrusted  preferably 
to  the  more  enlightened,  the  more  interested,  and  the  more  respons- 
ible of  the  body  politic,  and  to  each  according  to  his  capacity  or  his 
interest  in  the  good  administration  of  the  commonwealth. 

Hence,  also,  it  is  fair  that  the  law  guarantee  to  those  whom  it 
charges  with  such  mandate  the  efficiency  of  the  act  which  they  are 
to  perform;  for  the  vote  has  small  importance  indeed  to  the  mem- 
bers of  the  minority,  if  they  can  see  in  it  nothing  but  a  Platonic  and, 
at  most,  a  negative  demonstration,  as  in  all  the  systems  which 
allow  a  bare  majority  of  voters  to  carry  all  the  seats  in  a  constituency. 

However,  with  proportional  representation,  fairly  and  accurately 
as  it  works  in  Belgium,  there  is  always  bound  to  be  one  or  more 
important  sections  of  public  opinion  insufficiently  represented  in 
Parliament  or  possibly  altogether  deprived  of  such  representation. 
The  circumstance  at  first  sight  does  not  seem  very  remarkable,  for, 


POPULAR   SUFFRAGE  423 

under  any  conceivable  regime  of  representative  government,  the 
majority  of  the  voters  will  probably  own  the  majority  of  the  seats  — 
gerrymandering  being  left  out  of  consideration  —  and  overrule  the 
minority. 

But  the  great  boon  of  proportional  representation  is  that  it  insures 
the  actual  and  permanent  check  of  the  majority  by  representative 
minorities,  and  in  that  way  it  procures  better  legislation  and  a  more 
moderate  and  more  conscientious  expression  of  the  general  will  of  the 
community  through  the  legislative  activity  of  Parliament. 

The  consequences  for  public  life  are  obvious:  the  stability  of  a 
government  and  the  unquestionable  authority  of  laws  deriving 
their  prestige  from  the  undisputed  majority  of  a  whole  nation,  while 
the  minority  cannot  any  more  claim  that  it  is  overridden  or  foully 
suppressed. 

Those  reforms,  however  considerable  they  are  in  themselves, 
would  not  amount  to  much  if  the  Belgian  law  had  not,  by  a  remark- 
ably bold  departure  from  the  accepted  ideas,  made  voting  a  com- 
pulsory duty. 

For  it  is  not  much  use  to  devise  a  nicely  balanced  machinery 
and  to  fit  it  so  that  it  will  work  smoothly,  unless  the  whole  body 
of  the  voters  can  be  got  to  make  it  work. 

And  precisely  the  worst  to  be  looked  for  in  a  political  organization 
resting  upon  popular  suffrage  is  an  ill-fated  combination  of  excessive 
activity  on  the  part  of  the  disorderly  elements  with  the  natural 
apathy  of  the  orderly  ones,  for  politics  repels  the  latter  just  as  much 
as  it  attracts  the  former. 

True  it  is  that  the  electoral  trust  rests  imperatively  upon  all  the 
citizens  and  that  nobody  who  has  been  honored  with  it  can  neglect 
it  without  committing  a  serious  breach  of  duty.  But  it  is  too  well 
known  also  that  mere  suasion  is  not  always  strong  enough  to  over- 
come the  aversion  which  most  of  the  honest  and  quiet  people  feel  for 
active  political  demonstrations  of  any  kind. 

Hence  it  is  necessary  for  the  law  to  compel  them  to  perform  their 
duty.  And  the  law  could  do  that  all  the  better  in  Belgium  since  it 
had  already  guaranteed  to  every  one  the  efficiency  of  his  vote;  stay- 
at-home  voters  in  Belgium  no  longer  have  any  excuse. 

I  said  that  the  institution  of  compulsory  voting  was  a  bold  stroke 
of  policy,  because  whereas  most  people  agreed  upon  the  desirability 
of  it  in  theory,  yet  before  that  practical  experiment,  almost  every- 
body equally  believed  that  it  was  impossible  in  practice. 

Just  a  Uttle  common  sense  proved  enough  to  overcome  that 
unreasonable  fear. 

The  failure  to  vote  in  an  individual  instance  may  be  a  slight  thing 
in  itself,  but  it  is  primarily  a  bad  example,  and  it  is  positively  fatal 
as  soon  as  it  becomes  general. 


424  COMPARATIVE  LAW 

The  problem,  then,  was  to  find  a  penalty  for  it  which  should  not 
be  excessive,  —  because  that  would  have  killed  the  reform  on  the 
spot,  —  but  which  would  be  efl&cient  in  its  moderation  and  simple 
of  application.  Failure  to  vote  was  made  by  statute  a  petty  offense, 
liable  before  the  magistrates  to  small  punishments  ranking  from 
a  reprimand  up  to  a  fine  of  five  dollars  for  the  first  three  offenses;  at 
the  fourth  time  within  a  space  of  fifteen  years,  the  magistrate  im- 
poses the  same  penalties  with  a  suspension  of  electoral  rights  for  the 
next  ten  years;  and  the  suspended  voter  suffers,  moreover,  a  kind  of 
political  capitis  deminutio  and  is  deprived  during  the  same  period  of 
the  jus  honorum  ;  that  is,  he  can  no  more  receive  official  titles,  pro- 
motions, distinctions,  or  nominations  of  any  kind  whatsoever.  The 
merest  knowledge  of  human  nature  will  satisfy  the  student  about  the 
efficiency  of  such  a  sanction. 

As  a  fact,  the  result  looked  for  by  the  Belgian  legislature  has  been 
fully  reached :  we  have  to-day  no  more  than  five  per  cent,  of  absentee 
voters  in  a  total  of  1,500,000  voters,  disposing  of  about  2,300,000 
votes.  And  after  deducting  from  the  small  proportion  of  five  per  cent, 
of  absentee  voters  the  deceased  voters  on  the  register  and  those 
who  afford  a  valid  excuse  for  staying  away,  such  as  illness  or  absence 
from  the  country,  recent  statistics  show  that  the  willful  and  guilty 
abstainers  really  amount  to  about  three  per  thousand  of  the  total 
voting  force. 

Compulsory  voting,  as  it  works  in  Belgium,  is  really  the  keystone 
of  the  newest  electoral  organization.  To  its  efficiency  is  mainly  due 
the  efficiency  of  plural  suffrage  and  of  proportional  representation. 
Good  in  themselves  as  are  those  two  reforms,  they  cannot  but  re- 
main merely  theoretical  achievements  so  long  as  you  cannot  bring 
to  the  polls  the  bulk  of  the  best  citizens,  those  precisely  without 
whose  opinion  no  political  verdict  can  fairly  be  pronounced  a  com- 
pletely sincere  and  truly  representative  demonstration  of  public 
opinion. 

I  do  not  touch  here  upon  such  various  and  important  questions 
as  the  registration  of  voters,  the  nomination  of  candidates,  the 
organization  of  parties;  neither  do  I  mention  the  guarantee  of  free- 
dom and  secrecy  of  the  ballot,  because  a  study  of  those  questions  — 
which,  by  the  way,  are  less  novel  —  would  have  required  a  great 
deal  of  minute  analysis  and  of  technical  detail.  My  object  is  only 
to  draw  the  attention  of  this  Universal  Congress  to  three  new 
theories  quite  recently  appHed  in  practical  politics.  But  I  must  say 
that  even  those  reforms  imply  the  existence  of  an  already  advanced 
political  organization,  of  strongly  constituted  parties,  of  a  high 
standard  of  poUtical  ethics,  and  of  a  strenuous  public  demand  that 
elections  shall  be  (or  become)  a  free,  sincere,  and  loyal  consultation, 
equally  exempted  from  individual  or  machine  corruption,  and  from 


POPULAR  SUFFRAGE  425 

governmental  or  administrative  interference  in  any  degree.  Such 
happy  conditions  exist  in  Belgium  to-day,  and  they  made  the  reform 
at  once  easy  and  successful.  I  have  no  wish  to  talk  poUtics  in  a 
gathering  of  scientists;  therefore  I  will  refrain  from  mentioning  the 
particular  effects  which  the  reform  has  had  on  the  standing  of  the 
various  political  parties  in  Belgium.  We  are  concerned  here  only 
with  the  history  of  political  theories,  and  a  mere  chronicle  of  political 
events  is  foreign  to  our  present  studies. 

But  I  must  say  that  since  that  reform,  and  although  it  was  con- 
temporaneous with  the  institution  of  universal  suffrage,  elections 
in  Belgium  work  with  a  tranquillity,  a  smoothness,  and  a  regularity 
which  have  been  the  wonder  of  those  who  remembered  the  disquieting 
agitation  that  used  to  attend  them  in  former  times,  under  the  ma- 
jority rule.  This  result  is  very  important,  for  it  has  confirmed  by 
a  most  decisive  experiment  the  unimpeachable  fairness  and  sincerity 
of  the  new  Belgian  regime  —  and  this  is  no  small  merit,  indeed. 


REFERENCES   SUGGESTED   ON   THE   HISTORY    OF    LAW 

BY   EMLIN   m'CLAIN 

The  mass  of  literature  bearing  upon  the  history  of  the  law  is  so  great  that  it 
would  be  useless  in  a  brief  note  to  attempt  to  catalogue  even  those  works  which 
may  properly  be  regarded  as  monumental.  The  following  list  of  reference  books 
includes  some  of  the  treatises  available  in  English  which  may  serve  as  guides  to 
direct  the  student  to  the  original  sources  of  information. 

A  brief  account  of  the  ancient  codes  may  be  found  in  Guy  Carleton  Lee's  His- 
torical Jurispntdence  (1900).  The  Code  of  Hammurabi,  King  of  Babylon  (about 
B.C.  2250),  referred  to  in  the  foregoing  paper,  has  been  published,  with  a  transla- 
tion by  Robert  Francis  Harper  (1904). 

The  development  of  early  Roman  law  is  outlined  in  many  excellent  treatises, 
with  full  references  to  original  authorities  and  elaborate  commentaries;  among 
these  may  properly  be  mentioned:  William  C.  Morey's  Outlines  of  Roman  Law 
(1884,  1902);  James  Muirhead's  Historical  Introduction  to  the  Private  Law  of 
Rome  (1886);  Rudolph  Sohm's  Institutes  of  Roman  Law  (trans,  by  James  Craw- 
ford Ledlie,  1892);  Thomas  CoUett  Sandar's  Institutes  of  Justinian  (Am.  ed. 
with  Introduction  by  William  G.  Hammond,  1876). 

The  medieval  codes,  both  Roman  and  Teutonic,  are  fuUy  catalogued  and 
described  in  Edward  Jenks's  Law  and  Politics  in  the  Middle  Ages  (1898). 

A  detailed  account  of  the  early  development  of  the  English  common  law  will 
be  found  in  Pollock  and  Maitland's  History  of  English  Law  (2  vols.  1895),  and  no 
other  reference  to  the  subject  is  necessary. 


BIBLIOGRAPHY:   THE    HISTORY   OF    LAW 

{Prepared  by  the  courtesy  of  Hon.  Simeon  E.  Baldwin) 

Andrews,  American  Law,  1900. 

Baldwin,  The  American  Judiciary,  1905. 

Blackstone,  Sir  William,  Commentaries  on  the  Law  of  England. 

Bryce,  James,  The  American  Commonwealth. 

Butler,  Charles,  Horae  Juridicae  Subsecivae. 

Campbell,  Lives  of  the  Lord  Chancellors. 

Lives  of  the  Chief  Justices  of  England. 
Carson,  Lives  of  the  Chief  Justices  of  the  United  States. 
CoxE,  Essay  on  Judicial  Power  and  Unconstitutional  Legislation,  1893. 
CuQ,  E.,  Les  Listitutions  Juridiques  des  Romains  envisag^es  dans  leurs  Rapports 

avec  I'Etat  social  et  avec  les  Progrte  de  la  Jurisprudence,  Paris,  1891, 1902. 
Digest  of  Justinian. 

Dorado,  Valor  Social  de  Leyes  y  Autoridades,  Barcelona,  1903. 
Hale,  Sir  Matthew,  History  of  the  Common  Law. 
Heineccius,  Corpus  Juris  Germanici  Antiqui. 
Holmes,  Oliver  Wendell,  Jr.,  The  Common  Law. 
Hugo,  Histoire  du  Droit  Romain. 
Kent,  Commentaries  on  American  Law. 
Mackenzie,  Studies  in  Roman  Law. 
Maine,  Sir  Henry  Sumner,  Ancient  Law. 
Maitland,  F.  W.,  Justice  and  Police. 
Merlin,  Repertoire  de  Jurisprudence. 
Meyer,  J.  D.,  Esprit,  Origine,  et  Progrfes  des  Institutions  Judiciaires  des  Prin- 

cipaux  Pays  de  I'Europe. 
Montesquieu,  L'Esprit  des  Lois. 
Ortolan,  Histoire  de  la  Legislation  Romaine. 
Pollock  and  Maitland,  History  of  English  Law. 
Reeves,  History  of  the  English  Law  from  the  Time  of  the  Romans  to  the  End  of 

the  Reign  of  Elizabeth. 
Savigny,  Vom  Beruf  unserer  Zeit  fiir  Gesetzgebung  tmd  Rechtswissenschaft. 

Geschichte  des  Romischen  Rechts  im  Mittelalter. 
Spence,  Equitable  Jurisdiction  of  the  Court  of  Chancery. 
Thayer,  Preliminary  Treatise  on  Evidence  at  the  Common  Law,  1898. 
Thibaut,  Lehrbuch  der  Geschichte  und  Institutions  des  RSmischen  Rechts. 
ToMKiNS  AND  Jencken,  Compendium  of  the  Modem  Roman  Law. 
WiOMORE,  Treatise  on  the  System  of  Evidence  in  Trials  at  Common  Law,  1904, 

1905. 
Yale  University,  Two  Centuries'  Growth  of  American  Law,  by  members  of 

the  Law  Faculty  of  Yale  University,  1901. 


DEPARTMENT  VIII  —  HISTORY  OF  RELIGION 


DEPARTMENT  VIII— HISTORY  OF  RELIGION 


(Hall  5,  September  20,  2  p.  to.) 

Chairman:  Rev.  Wm.  Eliot  Griffis,  Ithaca,  N.  Y. 
Speakers:    Professor  George  F.  Moore,  Harvard  University, 
Professor  Nathaniel  Schmidt,  Cornell  University. 

The  Department  of  History  of  Religion  was  presided  over  by 
the  Rev.  William  Eliot  Griffis,  D.D.,  L.H.D.,  of  Ithaca,  New  York, 
formerly  of  the  Imperial  University  of  Japan,  and  author  of  Religions 
of  Japan.    In  presenting  the  speakers  Dr.  Griffis  said,  in  part: 

"  It  is  for  us  to  trace  out  what  are  man's  primitive  beliefs  in  presence 
of  the  universe.  What  are,  and  what  have  been,  his  conceptions  of 
duty  and  propriety?  What  are  the  lines  of  action  on  which  he  has 
formulated  his  ritual  or  expressed  his  dogma?  How  has  he  shown  his 
capacity  to  reason  from  the  known  to  the  unknown,  and  thus  to 
enlarge,  expand,  and  deepen  his  theory  and  practice  of  religion? 

"It  is  because  the  human  and  subjective  element  is  so  universally 
and  potently  present,  that,  in  the  study  of  religion,  especially,  we 
are  to  be  always  on  our  guard,  lest  the  accuracy  of  Qur  laboriously 
gathered  data  and  our  conclusions,  however  patiently  wrought,  be 
vitiated. 

"Strictly  speaking,  there  is,  there  can  be,  no  'conffict'  between 
religion  and  science,  no  more,  indeed,  than  between  chemistry  and 
science.  Nor  can  there  be,  any  more  than  between  science  and 
organic  chemistry,  such  a  thing  as  a  '  warfare '  between  science  and 
dogmatic  theology.  We  are  to  beware  of  the  unscientific  prejudgment 
with  which  investigation  is  often  carried  on.  There  have  been,  there 
always  will  be,  disagreements  and  even  quarrels  and  conflicts  between 
men  who  profess  to  be  exponents  of  'science'  in  any  form.  Where 
that  'science,'  whether  rightly  or  not  so  called,  represents  human 
authority  of  any  kind,  or  is  expressed  in  terms  that  are  unscientific, 
or  its  formulae,  whether  issuing  from  conclave  or  throne,  laboratory 
or  book,  are  made  engines  of  government,  there  must  almost  of  neces- 
sity be  conffict  and  even  strife. 

"  To  take  note  of  the  progress  that  has  been  made  within  the  past 
hundred  years  toward  assembling,  classifying,  and  comparing  the 
materials,  and  in  the  discernment  of  what  ideas  and  conceptions  are 
common  to  the  varied  mass  furnished  by  humanity,  is  as  appropriate 
to  the  purpose  and  plan  of  this  Congress  as  are  the  other  tasks  set 
before  this  gathering  of  scholars  of  many  nations.  Work  in  this 
Department  may  be  as  valuable  toward  helping  us  to  reach  the 
goal  of  the  unification  of  knowledge,  and  be  as  effective  for  the 
progress  of  mankind,  possibly  even  more  so,  than  that  in  other  lines 
of  human  achievement." 


THE    HISTORY   OF    RELIGIONS    IN    THE    NINETEENTH 

CENTURY 

BY  GEORGE   FOOT   MOORE 

[George  Foot  Moore,  Frothingham  Professor,  History  of  Religion,  Harvard  Uni- 
versity, since  1902.  b.  West  Chester,  Pennsylvania,  October  15,  1851.  Grad. 
Yale,  1872;  Union  Theological  Seminary,  New  York,  1877;  A.M.  Yale,  1883; 
D.D.  ibid.  1897;  D.D.  Marietta,  1885;  LL.D.  Western  Reserve  Universitv, 
1903.  Pastor  of  Putnam  Presbyterian  Church,  Zanesville,  Ohio,  1878-83; 
Professor  of  Hebrew,  Andover  Theological  Seminary,  1883-1902.  Member  of 
American  Oriental  Society,  Society  of  Biblical  Literature,  Deutsche  Morgen- 
landische  GeseUschaft.  Author  of  Commentary  on  Judges;  The  Book  of  Jwiges 
in  Hebrew,  Critical  Edition  with  Notes;  and  many  articles  in  biblical  journals, 
and  in  Enq/clopedia  Biblica.] 

The  encyclopedic  scheme  of  this  Congress  assigns  to  the  History 
of  Religions  its  proper  place  as  one  of  the  great  departments  of 
historical  science.  My  task  is  to  trace  the  progress  of  this  branch 
of  learning  in  the  nineteenth  century.  The  Philosophy  of  Religion 
belongs  to  another  division  of  the  Congress;  the  Problems  and 
Methods  of  the  History  of  Religions  are  to  be  discussed  at  this 
session  by  Professor  Schmidt;  while  the  history  of  research  in  the 
chief  religions  of  the  world  individually,  and  the  present  state  of 
investigation  in  each,  will  engage  the  several  sections  of  this  Depart- 
ment. The  nature  and  scope  of  the  present  paper  are  thus  defined; 
it  is  to  sketch  in  outline  the  development  within  the  last  century  of 
the  general  history  of  religions,  avoiding  as  far  as  possible  trenching 
upon  the  fields  of  other  speakers.  * 

The  history  of  religions  was  not,  either  in  name  or  in  fact,  a  new 
study  in  the  nineteenth  century.  The  revival  of  learning  brought 
to  the  knowledge  of  scholars  the  religions  of  the  Greeks  and  Romans, 
and  what  Greek  and  Latin  writers  had  to  tell  of  the  religions  of  other 
ancient  peoples  —  Egypt,  the  Semitic  East,  Persia,  and  India.  The 
study  of  the  Bible,  to  which  the  Reformation  gave  a  new  impulse, 
opened  the  sources  of  the  history  of  Judaism  and  Christianity. 
Travelers  and  discoverers  from  the  beginning  of  the  fourteenth  cen- 
tury brought  back  accounts,  often  marvelous  enough,  of  the  reUg- 
ions  of  remoter  Asia,  and,  from  the  new  continent  beyond  the  sea, 
of  the  civilized  peoples  of  Mexico  and  Peru  as  well  as  of  the  savage 
tribes.  Soon  missionaries,  both  in  the  Old  World  and  in  the  New, 
from  more  intimate  acquaintance,  began  to  give  more  authentic 

*  See  Hardy,  E.,  Zur  Geschichte  der  vergleichenden  Religions f or schung,  in 
Archiv  fur  Religionswissenschaft,  iv,  45-66,  97-135,  193-228;  Jastrow,  M.,  Jr., 
The  Study  of  Religion,  1901,  c.  1.  To  the  classified  bibliography  appended  to  the 
latter  work  (pp.  401-415)  the  reader  is  referred  for  a  fxiller  survey  of  the  literature 
than  can  be  given  in  this  paper. 


RELIGIONS  IN  THE   NINETEENTH  CENTURY     433 

information  about  the  beliefs  and  customs  of  many  races.  A  keen 
interest  was  thus  aroused  in  the  rehgions  of  the  world,  and  in  the 
seventeenth  and  eighteenth  centuries  many  comprehensive  works 
upon  the  subject  were  written,  some  of  them  on  a  large  scale.  Most 
of  these  are  descriptive  rather  than  properly  historical,  but  the 
name  "  History  of  Religions,"  implying  at  least  an  apprehension  of 
the  true  nature  of  the  task,  became  common  toward  the  end  of  the 
eighteenth  century.^ 

The  question  of  the  origin  of  the  heathen  religions  was  also  dis- 
cussed in  the  seventeenth  and  eighteenth  centuries,  the  prevailing 
opinion  being  that  the  worship  of  the  heavenly  bodies  was  the  earliest 
form  of  "idolatry"  —  a  theory  which  had  been  inherited  from  the 
last  ages  of  classical  paganism  itself.  Voltaire  touched  with  a  keen 
observation  the  improbability  of  this  theory;  both  he  and  Fontenelle 
made  some  sensible  and  strikingly  modern  remarks  on  the  subject, 
which  passed  unheeded.  Dupuis's  Origines  de  Tous  les  Cultes,  which 
we  may  take  as  marking  the  close  of  this  period,  is  a  learned  and 
thoroughgoing  attempt  to  trace  all  .religions  and  mythologies,  in- 
cluding Judaism  and  Christianity,  to  one  source,  Egyptian  sun- 
worship.  ^ 

The  astral  theory  of  religion  was  not,  .however,  in  undisputed 
possession  of  the  field  at  the  beginning  of  the  nineteenth  century. 
Its  ancient  rival,  Euhemerism,  still  had  its  adherents,^  and  a  new 
and  formidable  competitor  had  appeared.  De  Brosses,  in  his  Culte 
des  Dieux  Fetiches, *^  turned  from  interpretations  of  poetical  mythology 
to  the  investigation  of  the  religions  of  living  races  in  a  state  of 
savagery,  and  showed  how  irrational  phenomena  in  higher  religions, 
such  as  the  worship  of  living  animals  in  ancient  Egypt,  might  be 
explained  by  the  beliefs  and  customs  of  modem  African  tribes. 
Upon  the  lowest  plane  of  culture  men  worship,  not  the  heavenly 
bodies,  but  chance  stocks  and  stones,  rocks  of  strange  shape  or  color, 
trees,  animals,  all  of  which  De  Brosses  comprised  under  the  term 
"fetish,"  originally  applied  by  the  Portuguese  to  the  rude  artificial 

*  Among  the  earliest  comprehensive  attempts  was  Alexander  Ross,  TTafo-cjSf ta, 
or  View  of  all  the  Religions  of  the  World  .  .  .  from  the  Creation  to  these  Times, 
London,  1652.  This  work  had  an  extraordinary  success;  a  second  edition  appeared 
in  1655,  a  third  in  1658;  and  within  ten  years  it  had  been  translated  into  Dutch, 
German,  and  French.  Of  the  works  of  the  eighteenth  century  it  may  suffice  to 
name  here  the  large  and  splendidly  illustrated  Ceremonies  et  Coutumes  Religieuses 
de  tous  les  Peuples  du  Monde,  Amsterdam,  1723-37,  7  vols,  fol.,  afterwards 
enlarged  to  10;  sumptuously  reprinted,  Paris,  1807-10,  in  11  vols.  The  engravings 
are  by  Bernard  Picart,  the  (anonymous)  text  by  J.  F.  Bernard  and  others. 

*  Dupuis,  C.  F.,  Origines  de  Tous  ks  Cultes,  ou  Religion  Universelle,  Paris, 
1794,  3  vols.  4°,  with  a  supplementary  volume  of  plates;  also  in  10  vols.  8°. 

^  The  most  important  work  of  this  school  in  the  eighteenth  century  was  that 
of  Banier,  A.,  La  Mythologie  et  les  Fables  expliquees  par  I'Histoire,  Paris,  1738-40, 
3  vols.  4°;  2d  ed.  Paris,  1748,  8  vols.  8°;  English  translation.  The  Mythology  and- 
Fables  of  the  Ancients  explained  from  History,  London,  1739-40,  4  vols.  8°. 

*  De  Brosses,  C.  F.,  Du  Culte  des  Dieux  Fetiches,  ou  Parallele  de  I'Ancienne 
Religion  de  I'Egypte  avec  la  Religion  Actv^Ue  de  Nigritie,  1760,  12*'. 


434  HISTORY   OF  RELIGION 

objects  possessing  magical  properties,  half  amulet,  half  idol,  which 
play  a  large  part  in  the  religion  of  the  West  African  negroes.  Still 
farther  extended  to  the  worship  of  material  objects  in  general, 
sometimes  including  even  the  heavenly  bodies,  "fetishism"  became 
a  formula  in  which  many  writers  of  the  last  century  thought  that  the 
origin  of  religion  had  been  found. 

The  position  of  the  history  of  religions  in  Germany  at  the  be- 
ginning of  the  nineteenth  century  is  best  represented  by  Creuzer's 
Symbolik  and  Mythologie  der  Alten  Volker.^  The  successive  editions 
of  this  work,  the  French  translation  and  adaptation  by  Guigniaut,^ 
and  the  writings  of  Creuzer's  disciples  —  among  whom  F.  C.  Baur  is 
numbered  ^  —  may  be  said  to  record  the  history  of  the  subject 
through  the  first  half  of  the  century.  The  discredit  into  which 
Creuzer's  theory  of  "symbolism"  has  fallen,  in  consequence  partly 
of  the  contemporary  criticism  of  Lobeck  *  and  others,  partly  of  the 
general  progress  of  the  study,  should  not  lead  us  to  ignore  the  fact 
that  his  volumes  furnished  a  useful  and  comprehensive  collection  of 
what  was  then  known  about  the  principal  religions  of  the  world; 
while  of  the  theory  itself  it  has  been  justly  said  that  it  had  at  least 
the  merit  of  recognizing  that  mythology  is  a  product  of  religion, 
not  merely  a  play  of  poetic  fancy. 

Reviewing  from  our  own  point  of  view  these  earlier  essays,  we  can 
see  that  the  treatment  of  the  history  of  religions  suffered,  like  all 
other  branches  of  historical  research,  from  the  striking  lack  of  the 
historic  sense  which  characterized  the  age  of  "  Aufklarung,"  and 
from  the  alternative  attitude  of  credulity  or  skepticism  toward  the 
sources  which  could  be  overcome  only  by  the  establishment  of  the 
principles  of  historical  criticism;  while  peculiar  hindrances  existed  in 
religious  prepossessions.  So  long  as  Christian  writers  regarded  all 
the  religions  of  the  world  except  Judaism  and  Christianity  as  sinful 
aberrations  from  a  primitive  revelation,  and  freethinkers  conceived 
of  all  existing  religions,  including  Christianity,  as  corruptions,  under 
the  hand  of  self-seeking  priests,  of  a  pure  "natural  religion,"  no 
true  understanding  of  the  phenomena  was  possible.  The  way  to 
progress  was  opened  by  a  sounder  conception  of  the  nature  of  history 

*  Creuzer,  Fr.,  Symbolik  und  Mythologie  der  Alten  Volker,  1810-12;  2d  ed. 
1819-23,  6  vols,  with  Atlas;  3d  ed.  1837-42,  4  vols 

'  Guigniaut,  J.  D.,  Les  Religions  de  I' Antiquity,  Paris,  1825-41,  10  vols,  8°. 

^  Baur,  F.  C.,  Symbolik  und  Mythologie  oder  die  Naturreligion  des  Alterthums, 
1824-25,  3  vols. 

Of  the  numerous  other  works  of  the  first  half  of  the  nineteenth  century  mav 
be  named,  Meiners,  C,  Allgemeine  kritische  Geschichte  der  Religionen,  1806-07, 
2  vols.;  Constant,  B.,  De  la  Religion  consideree  dans  sa  Source,  ses  Formes,  et  ses 
Developpements,  1824-34,  5  vols  ;  Schwenck,  Konrad,  Mythologie  der  Griechen, 
Romer,  Aegypter,  Semiten,  Perser,  Germanen  und  Slaven,  2d  ed.  1855,  7  vols. 
(1st  ed.  under  a  somewhat  different  title,  1843-53);  Eckermann,  K.,  Lehrbuch  der 
ReligionsgeschicMe  und  Mythologie,  1845-1848,  4  vols. 

*  Tvobeck,  Chr.  A.,  Aglaophamus,  sive  de  theologiae  mysticae  Graecorum  causis, 
1829. 


RELIGIONS  IN  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY     435 

in  general,  and  of  the  history  of  rehgion  in  particular,  which  we 
associate  with  the  names  of  Lessing  and  Herder.  That  the  history  of 
religion  is  the  record  of  a  development  whose  law  is,  first  that  which 
is  natural,  then  that  which  is  spiritual,  is  an  idea  so  familiar  to  us 
that  it  is  hard  to  realize  that  little  more  than  a  century  ago  it  was 
novel  and  revolutionary. 

The  acceptance  of  a  true  conception  of  history  and  the  achieve- 
ment of  a  sound  historical  method  would,  however,  of  themselves 
have  availed  little,  apart  from  the  vastly  enlarged  knowledge  of 
religions,  both  ancient  and  living,  which  has  been  gained  in  the  last 
hundred  years.  ^  At  the  beginning  of  the  century  the  religions  of 
Greece  and  Rome,  Judaism,  Christianity,  and  Islam  were  the  only 
religions  which  were  known  through  native  sources  or  their  own 
sacred  books,  unless  we  make  a  partial  exception  of  Chinese  texts 
translated  by  Jesuit  missionaries.  For  Egypt  and  Babylonia,  India 
and  Persia,  the  chief  or  only  sources  of  information  were  the  frag- 
mentary and  often  conflicting  reports  in  Greek  and  Latin  authors. 
Since  then  the  religious  literature  of  India,  surpassing  all  others  in 
extent  and  variety,  and  covering  a  period  of  three  thousand  years, 
has  been  brought  to  light.  The  Avesta,  whose  chief  books  were  brought 
to  Europe  in  the  eighteenth  century,  has  been  made  intelligible  by 
the  labors  of  three  generations  of  scholars,  and  many  later  Zoroastrian 
writings  recovered.  The  Chinese  classics  and  the  sacred  books  of 
Taoism  have  been  repeatedly  interpreted  in  the  light  both  of  native 
comment  and  of  Western  philology.  The  decipherment  of  the 
Egyptian  hieroglyphic  writing  in  the  early  nineteenth  century  was 
followed  by  continuous  excavation  and  discovery,  the  latest  stages 
of  which  have  extended  the  historical  horizon  over  distant  centuries, 
and  promise  to  make  the  civilization  and  religion  of  the  Old  Empire 
almost  as  well  known  as  that  of  the  New.  In  Assyria  and  Babylonia 
civilizations  not  less  ancient  than  that  of  Egypt  have  been  brought 
to  light;  and  there  also  religious  monuments  and  texts  of  the  most 
diverse  kinds,  representing  perhaps  four  millenniums,  are  accumulated 
with  a  rapidity  that  outruns  the  utmost  activity  of  decipherers  and 
students. 

In  the  classical  field  the  discovery  and  methodical  use  of  remains 
and  monumental  sources  has  done  much  to  enlarge  and  correct  the 
notions  formed  from  the  literature  alone.  By  this  means  only  it  has 
proved  possible  to  reconstruct,  at  least  in  broken  outlines,  the  genuine 
Roman  religion,  as  distinct  from  the  late  syncretism  which  is  repre- 
sented by  all  the  literary  sources.  Recent  excavations,  again,  have 
revealed  the  antiquity  of  a  high  Hellenic  or  Proto-Hellenic  civiliza- 
tion in  the  eastern  Mediterranean  basin,  and  of  an  active  intercourse 

*  On  the  history  of  these  discoveries,  see  Hardy,  Archiv  fur  Religionswisserir- 
schaft,  IV,  97  ff. 


436  HISTORY  OF  RELIGION 

with  Egypt  and  the  East;  while  the  "Mycenaean"  tombs  and  the 
palaces  and  caves  of  Crete  disclose  something  at  least  of  the  religion 
of  that  remote  age.  The  discovery  or  evaluation  of  a  multitude  of 
documents  of  inferior  religious  authority,  but  often  of  the  highest 
historical  importance,  and  above  all  the  critical  study  of  the  canonical 
sources  themselves  and  the  comparison  of  other  religions,  have  led 
to  conceptions  of  the  history  of  Judaism,  Christianity,  and  Islam, 
differing  often  radically  from  those  which  prevailed  only  a  generation 
ago.  Thus  on  all  sides  the  authentic  knowledge  of  the  chief  historical 
religions  of  the  world  has  been  immeasurably  enlarged  by  the  dis- 
coveries and  investigations  of  the  nineteenth  century. 

Sacred  books  and  other  literary  sources  are,  however,  not  the  only 
witnesses  to  ancient  religions.  ^  The  collection  of  German  "  Mahrchen  " 
made  by  the  brothers  Grimm,  proved  to  contain  Teutonic  myths, 
depotentiated  and  disguised;  and  comparison  with  Norse,  Greek, 
and  later  with  Vedic  mythology,  suggested  that  in  Germanic  folk- 
lore were  remains  of  a  common  Indo-Germanic  tradition.^  The 
investigation,  by  Mannhardt  and  others,  of  popular  customs,  espe- 
cially peasant  customs,  and  beliefs  connected  with  agriculture  and 
vegetation,  showed  that  here  also,  in  what  the  prevalence  of  Christian- 
ity had  reduced  to  the  rank  of  superstitions,  were  survivals  of  the 
religions  which  Christianity  supplanted.'  The  study  of  folk-lore  and 
the  "lower  mythology,"  and  of  popular  custom  and  superstition, 
which  has  been  so  diligently  prosecuted  in  the  last  half-century, 
opens  to  the  student  of  the  history  of  religions  sources  which  often 
supplement  or  interpret  in  a  most  welcome  manner  his  literary 
material.  For  the  great  mass  of  peoples  and  religions  which  have 
never  created  a  sacred  Hterature  the  student  is  wholly  dependent  on 
this  stream  of  living  tradition  and  practice.  Anthropology,  which 
Waitz  raised  to  the  rank  of  a  science,*  gives  to  religion  a  place  cor- 
responding to  its  pervasive  significance  in  savage  and  semi-civilized 
societies,  and  thus  becomes  one  of  the  most  important  auxiliaries 
of  the  history  of  religions.  It  has  established  the  universality  of 
religion,  and  shown,  beneath  all  differences,  a  large  measure  of  agree- 
ment in  the  religions  of  peoples  of  the  most  diverse  races  upon  the 
same  plane  of  culture  and  with  similar  social  organization.  The 
study  of  the  agreements  and  the  differences  shows  the  common 
characteristics  of  the  savage  mind,  the  influences  of  history  and 

^  See  on  the  following,  Mannhardt,  W.,  Wald  und  FeldkuUe,  1875-77,  2  vols., 
vol.  II,  pp.  i-xi. 

^  Grimm,  J.  u.  W.,  Kinder- und-Hausmarchen,  1812-15;  2d  ed.  1819-22,  3  vols. 
See  especially,  Grimm,  J.,  Deutsche  Mythologie,  1835;  2d  ed.  1844;  3d  ed.  1854; 
4  ed.  besorgt  von  E.  H.  Meyer,  1875  sqq. 

'  See  Mannhardt,  cited  above,  n.  9. 

*  Waitz,  Th.,  Anthropologic  der  Naturvolker,  1859  sqq.  (continued  by  G.  Ger- 
land);  see  also  Bastian,  A.,  Der  Mensch  in  der  Geschichte,  1860,  3  vols.,  and  in 
numerous  other  works. 


RELIGIONS  IN  THE   NINETEENTH  CENTURY      437 

environment,  and  peculiarities  that  seem  to  be  racial.  The  subject 
presents  to  the  student  of  social  psychology  some  of  his  most  interest- 
ing problems. 

Between  the  religions  of  the  lowest  peoples  and  those  which  have 
reached  the  highest  level  in  intelligence  and  spirituality  there  is 
an  unbroken  connection;  not  only  do  survivals  and  superstitions 
persist  in  the  most  advanced  religions,  but  the  germs  of  their  loftiest 
conceptions  may  sometimes  be  recognized  in  barbarous  surroundings. 
The  field,  wide  as  it  is,  is  one;  the  history  of  religions  points  onward 
to  a  history  of  religion. 

The  immediate  task  of  the  scholar*  of  the  nineteenth  century  in 
their  several  fields  was  the  mastering  of  these  vast  acquisitions  of 
material  —  the  establishment  of  trustworthy  texts,  the  creation 
of  philological  apparatus,  the  interpretation  and  criticism  of  the 
literature;  the  restoration  and  decipherment  of  inscriptions;  the 
verifying  and  sifting  of  the  reports  of  travelers  and  discoverers; 
the  comparison,  classification,  and  interpretation  of  phenomena. 
Great  things  have  been  accomplished  in  all  these  directions  by 
philologists,  archaeologists,  and  ethnologists;  upon  the  foundations 
thus  laid  future  generations  will  securely  build.  If  the  division  of 
labor  sometimes  narrowed  the  horizon,  it  at  least  conduced  to 
thoroughness  in  •:  -'mited  field.  The  relations  of  some  languages 
and  literatures  to  one  another  were,  however,  such  as  not  only  to 
invite  but  to  demand  comparative  treatment.  The  older  Avestan 
scriptures,  for  example,  could  be  rightly  understood  only  when  the 
light  of  comparative  philology  was  added  to  the  native  tradition; 
and  the  common  background  of  the  Indian  and  Iranian  religions 
seemed  to  require  the  application  of  the  same  method.  Names  and 
myths  appeared,  again,  to  connect  the  gods  of  the  Vedic  hymns 
with  those  of  Greece,  and  more  remotely  with  other  branches  of 
the  Indo-Germanic  family.  The  philologists  who  attempted  by  com- 
parison of  the  common  stock  of  words  or  roots  to  construct  a  picture 
of  primitive  Indo-Germanic  culture  could  not  exclude  from  their 
consideration  the  language  of  religion. 

It  was,  in  fact,  from  Vedic  studies  that  the  initiative  came,  which 
in  the  second  half  of  the  nineteenth  century  gave  a  new  impulse  to 
the  study  of  the  history  of  religions;  and  Professor  F.  Max  Miiller, 
if  not  the  originator  of  the  "Comparative  Science  of  Religion," 
will  always  have  the  merit,  not  only  of  contributing  largely  to  its 
progress,  but  of  having  created  an  interest  in  the  subject,  and  secured 
a  support  for  it  without  which  some  of  its  most  notable  achievements 
would  not  have  been  possible.*  It  is  easy  now  to  see  the  fundamental 

*  See  Kuhn,  A.,  Hermes-Sarameyas,  Zeitschrift  f.  das  AUerthum,  vi,  1848, 117- 
134;  Die  Herabkunft  des  Feuers  und  des  Gottertranks,  1859;  Schwartz,  W., 
Ursprung  der  Mythologie,  1860;  Sonne,  Mond  und  Sterne,  1864;  Muller,  Fr. 
Max,   Comparative  Mythology  (Oxford  Essays),   1856;    Chips  from  a  German 


438  HISTORY  OF  RELIGION 

defects  of  Miiller's  method  and  the  erroneousness  of  man}'-  of  the 
conclusions  which,  with  Uttle  modification,  he  maintained  to  the 
end  of  his  Hfe.  The  hymns  of  the  Rig- Veda  are  almost  as  far  as  the 
Homeric  epics  from  being  the  product  of  a  simple  society,  or  the 
"  childlike  speech  "  of  primitive  religion;  the  equation  of  Indian  and 
Greek  gods  and  myths  is  often  effected  by  dubious  etymologies  or 
partial  and  inconclusive  coincidences.  The  identification  of  the  gods 
with  natural  objects,  and  the  meteoric  interpretation  of  the  myths 
is  assumed — following  the  classical  mythologists  of  the  time  — 
rather  than  established;  the  insecurity  of  the  results  being  manifest 
from  the  possibility  of  the  rival  "nubilar"  or  "crepuscular"  theories. 
The  most  radical  fault  of  the  system,  however,  was  the  arbitrary 
limitation  of  the  material.  In  particular,  the  isolation  of  hymns 
and  myths  from  the  ritual  was  a  fruitful  cause  of  misunderstanding; 
and  the  assumption  that  the  darker  side  of  Indian  religion,  as  repre- 
sented in  the  Atharva-Veda  or  parts  of  the  Brahmanas,  is  wholly 
a  late  declension  from  the  pure  Vedic  faith,  led  to  its  virtual  exclusion 
from  consideration;  the  same  assumption  was  made  concerning  the 
darker  features  of  Greek  religion  in  contrast  to  the  aspect  presented 
in  the  Homeric  poems. 

At  this  point,  therefore,  Miiller's  method  and  results  were  assailed 
by  the  critics  of  the  anthropological  school,  among  whom  Andrew 
Lang  wielded  the  most  trenchant  pen.^  What  demands  explanation 
in  the  myths  is  the  irrational  and  immoral  element.  This  is  not  to 
be  explained  away  by  allegorical  interpretation,  in  ancient  or  modern 
fashion;  it  is  not  accounted  for  by  the  theory  of  "disease  of  language," 
which  makes  of  it  misunderstood  poetry  or  metaphor.  The  savage 
features  of  ancient  mythology  are  the  natural  product  of  a  savage 
state  of  society,  and  survived  in  civilization  under  the  conservative 
influence  of  religious  tradition.  The  proof  of  this  is  the  mythology  of 
modem  savages,  in  which  corresponding  phenomena  are  observed 
among  the  most  widely  separated  and  diverse  races.  Moreover, 
mythology  is  not  the  only  or  even  the  most  important  witness  to 
religious  beliefs.  Custom,  ceremony,  ritual  —  the  things  which  the 
gods  expect  of  men  and  which  the  worshipers  do  in  the  service  of 
the  gods,  not  tales  about  the  gods,  of  whatever  origin  —  constitute 
the  real  substance  of  religion,  and  embody  its  fundamental  ideas. 
Many  myths  are  not  poetical  reflections  of  natural  phenomena, 

Workshop,  1867,  2  vols.;  Lectures  on  the  Science  of  Religion,  1872;  The  Origin  and 
Growth  of  Religion,  illustrated  by  the  Religion  of  India  (Hibbert  Lectures),  1878; 
Natural  Religion,  1889,  Physical  Religion,  1891,  Anthropological  Religion,  1892, 
Theosophy,  or  Psitchological  Religion,  1893  (Gifford  Lectures);  Contributions  to 
the  Science  of  Mythology,  1897,  2  vols. 

*  Lang,  Andrew,  Custom  and  Myth,  1884;  Myth,  Ritual,  and  Religion,  1887, 
2  vols.;  1899,  2  vols.;  Modern  Mythology,  1897;  The  Making  of  Religion,  1898, 
2d  ed.  1900;  Magic  and  Religion,  1901.  The  last  two  volumes  against  some  posi- 
tions of  the  anthropological  school. 


RELIGIONS   IN   THE   NINETEENTH  CENTURY     439 

but  efforts  to  account  for  the  existence  of  strange  rites  and  customs 
or  to  explain  their  meaning. 

It  is  the  task  of  the  modern  student,  not  merely  to  collect  from 
the  writings  of  travelers,  missionaries,  and  political  agents  the  facts 
concerning  the  religious  practices  and  beliefs  of  rude  peoples,  and  to 
record  and  classify  them,  but  to  account  for  their  origin  and  per- 
sistence, and  for  the  transformations  they  undergo  in  the  develop- 
ment of  civilization.  This  was  the  problem  to  which  Tylor  addressed 
himself,  particularly  in  his  Primitive  Culture.^  Man's  earliest  known 
explanation  of  the  phenomena  and  forces  of  nature  is  "  animation  " ; 
not  only  what  we  call  living  things,  but  what  are  for  us  inanimate 
objects,  are  by  primitive  man  endowed  with  a  life  like  his  own,  a 
soul  with  passions  and  will.  There  are  also  spirits  that  are  not  con- 
fined in  particular  objects,  but  roam  freely,  manifesting  themselves 
sometimes  in  one  way  or  place,  sometimes  in  another.  These  spirits 
are  in  part  the  souls  of  dead  men,  neglected  or  hostile,  which  it  is 
necessary  to  placate  or  to  avert.  This  primitive  "animism"  is  the 
earliest  science  and  philosophy;  though  not  itself  religion,  it  shapes 
the  religious  conceptions  of  savages  everywhere,  and  maintains  it- 
self with  extraordinary  tenacity  in  advancing  culture.  Fetishism, 
stock-  and  stone- worship,  idolatry,  as  well  as  ancestor- worship, 
Shamanism,  and  magic,  have  their  roots  in  it.  With  a  one-sidedness 
which  Tylor  carefully  avoids,  Herbert  Spencer,  Lippert,  and  others 
derive  all  religion  from  offerings  to  friendly  ghosts  or  rites  designed 
to  thwart  the  malice  of  unfriendly  ones;  ^  Spencer's  theory  being  in 
effect,  as  he  himself  recognizes,  a  revival,  in  an  apparently  scientific 
form,  of  ancient  Euhemerism. 

Anthropological  studies  have  not  only  thrown  light  upon  the 
operation  of  the  savage  mind  and  on  the  influence  of  its  theory  of 
man  and  nature  upon  religious  conceptions,  but  have  shown  how  the 
development  of  religious  ideas  has  been  affected  by  the  social  organ- 
ization. The  phenomena  to  which  the  name  "  totemisra "  has  been 
given,  for  example,  are  generally  associated  with  a  peculiar  clan 
constitution,  in  which  descent  is  regularly  reckoned  in  the  female 
line.  Traces  of  this  form  of  social  organization  have  been  discovered 
among  peoples  which  have  long  since  got  beyond  it;  and  it  has  been 
inferred,  on  insufficient  grounds,  that  all  races  have  passed  through 
it.  But  while  this  generalization  may  not  stand,  the  studies  of 
McLennan,  W.  Robertson  Smith,  Frazer,  and  Jevons  '  have  unques- 

'  Tylor,  E.  B.,  Researches  into  the  Early  History  of  Mankind  and  the  Develop- 
ment of  Civilization,  1865;  Primitive  Culture,  1871,  2  vols.  3d  ed.  1891;  Lubbock, 
.1.,  The  Origin  of  Civilization  and  the  Primitive  Condition  of  Man,  1870,  6th  ed. 
1902;  Prehistoric  Times,  1865,  6th  ed.  1900. 

'  Spencer,  Herbert,  Principles  of  Sociology,  ch.  8-16;  Lippert,  Julius,  Kvltur- 
geschichte  der  Menschheit,  1866-67,  2  vols. 

'  McLennan,  J.  F.,  Fortnightly  Review,  Oct.  and  Nov.  1869,  Feb.  1870;  Frazer, 
.1.  G.,  Totemism,  1887;  The  Golden  Bmigh,  2  vols.  2d  ed.  1900;  Smith,  W.  R., 


440  HISTORY  OF  RELIGION 

tionably  shed  light  on  many  hitherto  obscure  problems  in  the  history 
of  religion.  The  recognition  of  the  intimate  connection  between  the 
social  and  political  organization  and  religion  has,  however,  a  much 
larger  significance,  which  remains  to  be  fully  evaluated.  Closely 
related  to  this  are  the  economic  factors,  which  have  influenced  the 
development  of  religion  both  indirectly,  through  the  social  organiza- 
tion —  the  conditions,  for  example,  which  make  the  horde  rather  than 
the  tribe  the  unit  —  and  directly,  by  determining  occupation,  con- 
straining to  migrations,  and  the  like.  This  side  of  the  subject  has 
only  recently  begun  to  receive  the  consideration  it  deserves,  espe- 
cially at  the  hands  of  French  scholars,  Tarde,  Durkheim,  and  others. 
The  general  trend  of  modern  investigation  has  thus  been  to  bring 
out  the  complexity  of  the  problem,  the  multiplicity  of  the  factors 
whose  interaction  has  determined  the  development  of  religions. 

In  the  discussions  of  the  last  century  the  question  of  the  origin  of 
religion  has  had  a  prominent  place.  In  one  sense,  Why  is  man  so 
universally  and  obstinately  religious?  the  question  belongs  to  the 
philosophy  of  religion;  the  history  of  religions  can  give  no  answer, 
though  it  can  put  the  theories  of  philosophers  to  the  critical  test  by 
comparison  with  the  facts.  But  in  the  other  sense  in  which  the 
question  is  often  taken.  What  was  the  primitive  form  of  religion? 
the  historian  must  again  confess  his  inability  to  answer.  There  was 
a  time,  not  so  long  ago,  when  the  Homeric  poems  or  the  hymns  of  the 
Rig- Veda  were  imagined  to  be  witnesses  to  primitive  Indo-European 
religion.  The  anthropologist  makes  a  similar  mistake  when  he 
imagines  that  the  religions  of  the  lowest  modern  savages  may  be 
regarded  as  survivals  of  primitive  religion.  The  Australian  black  or 
the  Andaman  islander  is  separated  by  as  many  generations  from  the 
beginning  of  religion  as  his  most  advanced  contemporaries;  and  in 
these  tens  or  hundreds  of  thousands  of  years  there  has  been  constant 
change,  growth  and  decay  —  and  decay  is  not  a  simple  return  to  the 
primal  state.  We  can  learn  a  great  deal  from  the  lowest  existing 
religions;  but  they  cannot  tell  us  what  the  beginning  of  religion  was, 
any  more  than  the  history  of  language  can  tell  us  what  was  the  first 
form  of  human  speech.  In  like  manner,  attempts  to  define  the  stages 
of  religious  development,  as,  for  example,  in  Comte's  scheme,  Fetish- 
ism, Polytheism,  Monotheism,  with  a  prophecy  of  Positivism,  have 
very  little  value  even  as  a  scheme  of  classification. 

Reviewing  the  progress  of  the  last  half-century,  we  see  that  the 
field  of  investigation  has  been  widened  so  that  it  now  includes  all 
known  reHgions,  ancient  and  modern,  from  the  lowest  to  the  highest, 
and  that  all  the  sources  and  the  special  sciences  which  throw  light 

Kinship  and  Marriage  in  Early  Arabia,  1885,  2d  ed.  1903;  The  Religion  of  the 
Semites,  1889,  2d  ed.  1894;  Jevons,  F.  B.,  Introduction  to  the  History  of  Religion, 
1896. 


RELIGIONS  IN  THE   NINETEENTH  CENTURY      441 

upon  man  and  society  are  made  tributary  to  the  history  of  religion. 
Psychology,  individual  and  social,  anthropology  and  ethnology, 
archaeology,  social,  political,  and  economic  history,  as  well  as  litera- 
ture, are  consulted,  for  it  is  recognized  that  nothing  which  affects 
man's  life,  inner  or  outer,  is  devoid  of  influence  on  his  religion.  It 
has  also  become  clearer,  in  the  course  of  investigation  and  discussion, 
that  the  study  of  religions  is  a  purely  historical  discipline,  to  be 
pursued  by  strict  historical  methods.  By  confining  itself  to  its  proper 
task  it  will  lay  the  securer  foundations  for  a  philosophy  of  religion. 
For  this  reason  objection  may  properly  be  made  to  the  name  "  Science 
of  Religion,"  introduced  by  Max  Miiller,  and  adopted  by  many,  for 
example,  by  Tiele  in  his  Giflford  Lectures.  The  term  "science,"  by 
its  correspondence  to  "Science  of  Language,"  suggests,  to  the 
English  reader  at  least  (and  was,  I  think,  intended  to  suggest),  a 
method  and  a  goal  different  from  those  which  we  regard  as  properly 
historical;  a  search  for  principles  and  laws  such  as  belong  to  the 
natural  sciences  and  to  certain  philosophical  conceptions  of  history, 
Hegelian  or  Positivist.  The  influence  of  this  idea  may  be  seen  in  the 
attempted  classifications  of  religions,  whether  Miiller's  own  (artificial) 
linguistic  classification,  or  Tiele's  "morphological,"  and  in  intent 
genetic,  system.  Asserting  the  scientific  character  of  all  rightly 
conducted  historical  investigation,  we  have  no  reason  to  emphasize 
it  specially  in  the  case  of  the  history  of  religions,  and  do  better  to 
disuse  a  term  which  is  either  a  truism  or  an  error. 

It  remains  to  speak  briefly  of  the  place  which  the  history  of 
religions  has  made  for  itself  in  the  world  of  learning.  *  The  conscious- 
ness that  a  new  and  important  field  of  knowledge  had  been  opened 
by  the  discoveries  of  religious  literatures  and  monuments  in  the 
nineteenth  century  manifested  itself  in  various  ways.  In  Holland  a 
series  of  volumes,  in  the  sixties,  on  the  leading  religions  of  the  world, 
including  Judaism  and  Christianity,  from  a  purely  historical  point  of 
view,  was  followed,  in  the  reorganization  of  the  theological  faculties 
of  the  state  universities  in  1877,  by  the  establishment  of  chairs  of 
the  history  and  philosophy  of  religion,  of  which  that  at  Leiden  was 
filled  by  Tiele;  ^  while  a  corresponding  chair  in  the  city  University 
of  Amsterdam  was  occupied  by  Chantepie  de  la  Saussaye.'  In 
France  a  professorship  of  the  history  of  religions  in  the  College  de 
France  was  founded  in  1879,  and  has  been  filled  since  that  time  by 

*  See  on  the  following,  A.  R^ville,  "  La  Situation  Actuelle  de  I'Enseignement  de 
I'Histoire  des  Religions,"  ReTme  de  I'Histoire  des  Religions,  xliii,  1901,  58  ff. 

^  Tiele,  C.  P.,  Geschiednis  van  den  Godsdienst  in  de  Oudheid  tot  op  Alexander 
den  Groote,  1893,  1902,  2  vols.;  German  translation  by  G.  Gehrich,  Geschichte 
der  Religion  im  Alterthum,  1895  sqg.;  Elements  of  the  Science  of  Religion,  1897, 
1899,  2  vols.  (Gifford  Lectures). 

^  Chantepie  de  la  Saussaye,  P.  D.,  Lehrbuch  der  Religionsgeschichte,  1887-89, 
2  vols.  2d  ed.  (with  the  cooperation  of  a  number  of  scholars),  1897,  2  vols. 


442  HISTORY   OF   RELIGION 

Albert  R^ville;  ^  and  in  1886  a  section  of  the  religious  sciences 
was  formed  in  the  Ecole  des  Hautes  Etudes  en  Sorbonne.  The  pro- 
gress of  these  studies  in  France  was  also  much  furthered  by  the 
estabUshment  of  the  Mus§e  Guimet  (1879;  since  1888  in  Paris),  with 
its  collections  and  library  and  its  liberal  subvention  of  publications, 
including  the  first  periodical  devoted  to  the  subject,  the  Revue  de 
I'Histoire  des  Religions  (since  1880).  In  England  a  long  series  of 
Hibbert  Lectures,  and  more  recently  several  of  the  Gifford  Lectures, 
have  contributed  to  the  spread  of  knowledge  and  the  quickening  of 
interest;  while  the  Sacred  Books  of  the  East  have  made  accessible, 
in  translations  by  eminent  scholars,  a  large  part  of  the  religious 
literature  of  the  world.  In  Germany  the  subject  has  been  slow  in 
finding  recognition  in  university  programmes  of  study,  though 
Roth  lectured  on  it  at  Tiibingen  from  the  fifties  to  his  death,  and 
though  German  scholars  have  made  many  of  the  most  valuable 
contributions  to  the  study.  The  Archiv  fiir  Religionswissenschajt 
(since  1898;  new  series  1904)  gives  a  much-needed  organ  for  the 
publication  of  investigation  and  discussion. ^  In  America  lectures 
on  the  history  of  religions  were  given  in  Harvard  University  in 
1854-55,  and  regularly  since  1867;  and  in  more  recent  years  at  many 
other  places,  among  which  may  be  named  Boston  University,  Cornell, 
Chicago,  Yale,  and  in  some  of  the  independent  theological  schools, 
as  at  Andover.  Finally,  mention  must  be  made  of  the  Parliament 
of  Religions  at  the  Columbian  Exposition  in  Chicago  in  1893,  whose 
published  proceedings  fill  two  volumes;  of  the  International  Con- 
gress for  the  History  of  Religions  in  Paris  in  1900,  and  of  that  which 
has  held  its  sessions  within  a  few  weeks  in  Basel  (August-September, 
1904). 

On  every  hand  we  see  a  recognition  of  the  importance  of  the  sub- 
ject and  a  growing  interest  in  the  study.  The  nineteenth  century 
accomplished  much;  it  is  for  the  scholars  of  the  twentieth  century, 
in  all  lands,  heirs  of  the  labors  of  their  predecessors,  encouraged  by 
their  success,  admonished  by  their  mistakes,  to  accomplish  yet 
greater  things. 

'  R^ville,  Albert,  ProUgomcnes  de  I'Histoire  des  Religions,  1881  (English 
translation  by  A.  S.  Squire,  1884);  Les  Religions  des  Peuples  Non-Civilises,  1883, 
2  vols.;  Les  Religions  du  Mexique,  de  VAmerique  Centrale  et  du  P&rou,  1885; 
La  Religion  Chinoise,  1889. 

'  Other  periodicals  which  should  be  mentioned  are  Revue  des  Religions,  1889 
SQQ.,  and  Revue  d'Hisfoire  et  de  Liiterature  Religieuses,  1896  sqq. 


FUNDAMENTAL   CONCEPTIONS   AND   METHODS   OF   THE 
HISTORY  OF  RELIGION 

BY   NATHANIEL   SCHMIDT 

[Nathaniel  Schmidt,  A.M.,  Professor  of  Semitic  Languages  and  Literature  since 
1896  in  Cornell  University,  b.  Hudiksvall,  Sweden,  May  22,  1862;  Hudiksvall 
Gymnasium,  1882;  University  of  Stockholm,  1884;  Hamilton  Theological 
Semmary,  1887;  A.M.  Colgate  University,  1887;  University  of  Berlin,  1890; 
Professor  of  Semitic  Languages  and  Literatures  in  Colgate  University,  1888-96; 
Professor  of  Semitic  Languages  and  Literatures  in  Cornell  University  since 
1896;  Director  of  the  American  School  of  Archaeology  in  Jerusalem,  1904-05. 
Member  of  the  Deutsche  Morgenlandische  Gesellschaft,  Deutsche  Vorderasia- 
tische  Gesellschaft,  American  Oriental  Society,  American  Geographical  Society, 
the  Society  for  Bibhcal  Literature  and  Exegesis,  and  other  societies.  Author  of 
The  Republic  of  Man,  1897;  Ecclesiasticus,  1903;  TJie  Prophet  of  Nazareth,  1905, 
and  numerous  treatises,  pamphlets,  and  articles  in  scientific  journals  and  ency- 
clopedias.] 

Theology  is  the  science  of  religion.  As  such  it  includes  every 
methodical  effort  to  obtain  certain  and  systematized  knowledge  of 
man's  religious  life.  Like  any  other  science,  it  gathers  and  sifts, 
compares  and  classifies,  traces  the  origin  and  development  of,  and 
seeks  to  explain,  the  facts  that  fall  within  its  domain.  In  accordance 
with  these  varied  scientific  activities,  it  is  possible  to  distinguish 
between  descriptive,  comparative,  historical,  and  philosophical 
theology. 

Descriptive  theology  collects,  verifies,  and  presents  the  facts  of 
religion.  Its  work  is  of  fundamental  importance  for  all  other  branches 
of  the  science.  Absolute  comprehensiveness  is  not  attainable.  Even 
a  carefully  trained  critical  judgment  is  liable  to  err.  Perfect  objectiv- 
ity is  endangered  by  the  imaginative  power  and  artistic  temper 
necessary  for  a  presentation  of  the  vast  material  in  orderly  arrange- 
ment, and  with  vividness  of  detail  and  color  of  life.  Yet  only  in 
so  far  as  the  collection  embraces  all  that  is  important  and  charac- 
teristic, the  critical  examination  is  thorough,  and  the  description 
approximates  accuracy,  are  the  results  available  as  a  true  foundation 
for  comparison,  classification,  historical  treatment,  and  philosophical 
appreciation. 

Comparative  theology  considers  the  similarities  and  dissimilarities 
of  religious  phenomena  and  classifies  them  on  the  basis  of  such 
comparison.  It  contemplates  the  material  gathered,  sifted,  and  set 
forth  by  descriptive  theology  without  any  other  aim  than  to  estab- 
lish the  exact  degree  of  similarity  between  religious  sentiments,  ideas, 
and  practices,  prevalent  among  men  in  different  ages  and  in  different 
parts  of  the  earth.  The  infelicitous  term  "Comparative  Religion," 
once  widely  used,  has  rightly  been  abandoned  by  careful  writers. 
Theology  may  be  comparative  when  it  limits  itself  to  a  comparison 


444  HISTORY  OF  RELIGION 

of  the  phenomena  of  religion;  religion  itself  cannot  be  comparative. 
The  vagueness  attaching  to  the  term  was  not  seldom  an  outward 
sign  of  the  inner  confusion  in  which  elements  of  description,  criticism, 
comparison,  history,  and  philosophy  were  jumbled  together.  A 
student  occupied  with  a  description  of  the  Polynesian  system  of 
tabus,  a  criticism  of  the  accounts  given  by  travelers  and  mission- 
aries, a  search  for  earlier  historic  forms  of  tabu  in  some  of  the  islands, 
or  the  ultimate  cause  of  the  tabu-conception,  is  not  engaged  in 
comparative  theology.  He  is  cultivating  this  branch  of  the  science 
of  religion  when  he  compares  the  highly  developed  Polynesian 
system  with  similar  tabus  in  other  times  and  places,  and  demon- 
strates that  certain  ideas  and  customs,  for  example  of  modern  India 
or  ancient  Persia  or  Judsea,  belong  to  the  same  order. 

Historical  theology,  or  the  history  of  religion,  seeks  to  discover 
the  origin  and  to  trace  the  growth  of  man's  religious  life.  It  seeks 
to  establish  the  sequence  in  time  of  religious  feelings,  thoughts,  and 
practices,  and  to  discern  the  laws,  if  such  there  be,  that  govern  this 
sequence.  It  considers  the  material  brought  together,  examined 
and  classified  by  the  preliminary  disciplines  from  the  viewpoint  of 
historical  development.  It  watches  the  operation  of  the  religious 
consciousness  in  its  relation  to  other  functions  of  man's  social 
life,  and  observes  the  psychological  conditions  determining  its 
course.  It  is  not  content  with  gleaning  facts,  weighing  evidence, 
describing  conditions,  and  comparing  and  classifying  phenomena,  but 
seeks  to  incorporate  the  facts  as  links  in  a  chain  of  development,  to 
determine  the  inner  connection  as  well  as  the  chronologial  sequence 
of  the  facts,  to  find  the  place  and  relative  significance  of  the  condi- 
tions described,  and  to  discover  the  relationship  indicated  by  the 
similarity.  But  the  history  of  religion  does  not  attempt  to  estimate 
the  absolute  value  of  any  religious  sentiment,  idea,  custom,  or 
institution. 

Philosophical  theology,  or  the  philosophy  of  religion,  aims  to  dis- 
cover the  ultimate  reality  behind  the  phenomena  of  man's  religious 
life.  This  reality  it  may  seek  in  the  constitution  of  the  human  mind 
or  in  the  constitution  of  the  universe.  In  so  far  as  it  endeavors 
to  find  in  man  himself  the  cause  of  his  religious  consciousness,  it 
may  be  designated  as  religious  psychology.  This  discipline  not  only 
traces  the  religious  phenomena  back  to  the  general  peculiarities  of 
man's  sentient,  intellectual,  and  moral  life  in  the  various  stages 
of  his  development,  but  also  undertakes  to  test  their  validity  and  to 
estimate  their  intrinsic  and  abiding  value.  The  observation  of 
morbid  religious  conditions  in  adults,  the  religious  attitude  of  men- 
tally immature  subjects  such  as  children  and  persons  of  retarded 
intellectual  growth,  or  the  ideas  and  practices  of  uncivilized  peoples 
especially  furnishes  the  religious  psychologist  with  the  means  of 


FUNDAMENTAL   CONCEPTIONS  AND  METHODS    445 

distinguishing  between  the  normal  and  the  abnormal,  and  teaches 
him  to  measure  the  value  of  religion  by  its  relatively  sound  and 
properly  developed  products,  rather  than  by  unhealthy,  immature, 
and  arrested  religious  growths.  In  so  far  as  philosophical  theology 
seeks  for  the  cause  of  religion  outside  of  man  in  the  constitution  of 
the  universe,  it  becomes  a  part  of  ontology  or  identical  with  this 
branch  of  philosophy.  This  is  obviously  the  case,  whether  the  his- 
toric formulae  of  theology  are  preserved  or  the  philosophical  termino- 
logy is  adopted. 

It  is  with  the  history  of  religion  that  we  are  at  the  present  time 
immediately  concerned.  At  the  threshold  we  are  met  by  two  ques- 
tions requiring  attention.  Is  history  a  science?  and  What  is  religion? 
If  history  is  not  a  science,  the  history  of  religion  is  not.  Science,  no 
doubt,  may  be  so  defined  as  to  exclude  the  work  of  the  historian. 
If  it  is  maintained  that  only  absolutely  certain  and  perfectly  sys- 
tematized knowledge  is  worthy  of  the  name,  it  can  at  most  apply  to 
the  so-called  formal  sciences,  which  in  reality  deal  exclusively  with 
objects  of  thought  created  by  the  human  mind  itself.  It  would  be 
inexpedient,  however,  to  limit  the  term  science  to  mathematics 
and  logic.  Astronomy,  physics,  and  chemistry,  though  dealing  with 
objective  facts,  which  can  never  be  adequately  known,  are  universally 
granted  to  be  sciences,  not  merely  because  they  depend  upon  mathe- 
matics and  to  a  certain  extent  share  its  solidity,  but  also  because 
they  attain  a  high  degree  of  certainty  permitting  even  prediction  of 
facts  still  in  the  future.  Yet  there  is  a  considerable  margin  of  un- 
certainty in  these  sciences.  The  more  complex  the  object  of  study 
is,  the  wider  is  this  margin.  There  is  less  possibiUty  of  prediction  in 
geology  than  in  astronomy,  less  in  biology  than  in  botany,  without 
prejudice  to  the  scientific  character  of  the  study  dealing  with  the 
more  complex  organizations.  Zoology  will  undoubtedly  retain  its 
place  among  the  sciences,  even  though  it  may  never  leam  to  predict 
with  accuracy  the  behavior  of  an  animal  under  given  circumstances 
in  the  future.  Mentality  and  volition  in  the  objects  studied  increase 
the  difficulties  of  the  scientific  work  and  confine  the  element  of 
prediction  within  narrower  limits,  but  do  not  render  the  study 
unscientific. 

As  these  qualities  have  reached  their  highest  development  known 
to  us  in  man,  and  the  evolution  of  man's  life  is  determined  by  the 
unfolding  of  his  intelligence  and  will,  it  is  natural  that  in  this  field 
the  facts  are  less  completely  mastered,  the  laws  of  development 
less  clearly  perceived,  and  the  future  less  accurately  foretold  than 
in  the  case  of  other  objects  of  knowledge.  There  seems  indeed  to  be 
little  probability  that  the  innumerable  facts  and  factors  of  human 
history  will  ever  be  known,  or  that  the  varied  tendencies  of  human 
life,  affected  as  they  are  by  the  changing  external  environment, 


446  HISTORY   OF   RELIGION 

will  ever  be  so  perfectly  traced  as  to  allow  the  same  amount  of 
unerring  prognostication  as  in  astronomy.  Hence  the  doubt  whether 
history  is  a  science.  But  it  must  be  recognized  that,  with  the  increase 
of  historical  knowledge,  the  impression  of  a  development  according 
to  fixed  laws  has  been  steadily  growing  until  at  the  present  time  few 
careful  observers  would  deny  that  the  life  of  man,  in  spite  of  his 
finer  and  richer  organization,  has  been  as  really  subject  to  law  as 
any  other  part  of  nature.  Nor  are  serious  students  of  history  in- 
clined to  question  the  operation  of  these  laws  in  the  future  any  more 
than  their  dominancy  in  the  past,  or  to  doubt  that  a  knowledge  of 
the  tendencies  manifest  in  the  historic  development  of  the  human 
race  will,  in  increasing  measure,  render  it  possible  to  predict,  within 
certain  limits,  whither  the  currents  of  thought  and  life  will  flow  in 
the  future.  The  name  of  science  is  justified  by  the  methodical  effort 
to  gain  certain  and  systematized  knowledge  and  by  the  similarity 
of  the  results  to  those  obtained  in  all  but  the  formal  sciences. 

Historical  theology  may  therefore  without  hesitancy  be  regarded  as 
that  branch  of  the  science  of  history  which  deals  with  the  develop- 
ment of  man's  religious  life.  Its  scientific  character  is  in  no  way 
affected  by  any  conclusions  that  may  be  reached  as  to  the  sanity  of 
religious  emotions,  the  propriety  of  religious  practices,  the  validity 
of  religious  conceptions,  and  the  objective  reality  of  the  power  or 
powers  worshiped.  Were  religion  nothing  but  a  mass  of  emotions, 
beliefs,  and  performances  due  to  an  immature  or  diseased  mental 
activity  on  the  part  of  man,  the  rational  attempt  to  trace  its  origin 
and  growth  and  to  find  the  laws  of  its  development  would  still  be 
a  scientific  work. 

In  order  to  accomplish  this  work,  it  is  of  first  importance  to  deter- 
mine what  phenomena  of  man's  life  should  be  assigned  to  the  realm 
of  religion.  The  great  number  of  definitions  of  religion  that  have  been 
proposed  shows  how  difficult  a  task  this  is.  The  confusion  in  the 
minds  of  some  eminent  scientists  revealed  by  their  statements  as  to 
savage  peoples  possessing  no  religion  indicates  its  necessity.  It  is 
evident  that  in  a  definition  there  should  be  included  every  important 
phase  of  man's  religious  life,  emotional,  intellectual,  and  practical, 
and  every  important  historic  manifestation  of  religion,  whether  in 
early  ages  known  to  us  only  through  archaeological  remains  or  in 
later  periods  known  through  documentary  evidence  as  well,  among 
uncivilized  or  civilized  peoples.  It  is  not  permissible  to  regard 
religion  solely,  or  chiefly,  as  a  feeling,  or  a  belief,  a  more  or  less  per- 
fect interpretation  of  the  universe,  or  a  cult,  or  a  rule  of  conduct, 
inasmuch  as  all  these  elements  are  present  in  some  form  in  all  known 
stages  of  religious  development.  The  historian  of  religion  has  no 
right  to  draw  an  artificial  line  of  demarcation  between  the  so-called 
prehistoric  age  and  the  historic  age,  and  to  leave  out  of  consideration 


FUNDAMENTAL  CONCEPTIONS   AND  METHODS    447 

any  phenomena  of  a  religious  nature  known  to  have  belonged  to  the 
former.  A  tomb  of  the  early  neolithic  period  is  as  infallible  a  sign  of 
the  existence  of  religion  as  a  church  or  a  mosque  or  a  synagogue 
is  of  a  particular  type  of  religion  in  recent  times.  Nor  is  he  warranted 
in  so  defining  religion  as  to  put  outside  its  limits  any  form  which  in 
some  of  its  manifestations  has  ceased  to  share  characteristics  com- 
mon to  all  others,  or  to  most  of  them.  It  is  obvious  that  religion 
cannot  be  defined  in  such  a  manner  as  to  make  Gautama  of  Kapi- 
lavashtu  or  Jesus  of  Nazareth  devoid  of  religion,  or  to  render  the 
ecclesiastical  organizations  that  imperfectly  reflect  their  spirit  and, 
in  compromise  with  hostile  tendencies,  too  often  have  abandoned 
their  fundamental  principles,  more  truly  religious  than  they  were 
themselves.  Buddhism  especially  furnishes  a  heavy  obstacle  in  the 
way  of  definition  and  a  sore  temptation  to  simplify  the  work  by 
excision.  But  what  has  been  called  the  "religion  of  pity"  cannot  be 
left  out  as  a  non-religious  phenomenon  unless  it  is  possible  to  classify 
it  more  satisfactorily  as  a  system  of  philosophy,  of  ethics,  or  of 
psychology.  This  does  not  seem  feasible,  as  it  clearly  possesses,  not 
only  on  the  emotional  and  practical  sides,  but  also  intellectually, 
much  that  is  common  to  the  phenomena  of  man's  life  that  are  gen- 
erally reckoned  as  religious. 

Among  the  definitions  of  religion  that  have  been  offered,  some 
deserve  special  consideration.  The  Latin  word  religio  was  derived 
by  Cicero  *  from  re-legere,  gather  anew,  re-collect,  take  up  a  thing  to 
give  it  fresh  attention;  by  Lactantius  ^  more  correctly  from  re- 
ligare,  bind,  attach.  The  idea  of  a  bond  is  good;  but  a  satisfactory 
definition  must  indicate  the  character  of  this  bond.  Theologians  who 
identified  with  religion  their  own  form  of  religion  and  looked  upon 
all  other  forms  as  false  religions,  having  a  different  origin,  being 
counterfeits  of  the  true  one,  or  having  arisen  through  perversion  of 
a  primitive  revelation,  could  define  religion  only  by  describing  their 
own  particular  faith  and  practice.  When,  under  the  influence  of  the 
development  of  the  natural  sciences,  thinkers,  especially  in  England, 
began  to  demand  that  religion  should  be  demonstrated  as  being  in 
harmony  with  reason,  the  defenders  of  dogma  vied  with  its  assailants 
in  maintaining  the  reasonableness  of  Christianity.  The  only  difference 
was  that  the  Deists  found  it  necessary  to  reject  the  miraculous  super- 
structure and  prove  Christianity  to  be  the  true  exponent  of  the 
natural  theology  of  man.  This  position  was  still  occupied,  in  the 
main,  by  the  great  German  philosophers  at  the  end  of  the  eighteenth 
and  the  beginning  of  the  nineteenth  century,  though  their  historical 
horizon  was  wider  and  their  philosophical  insight  deeper.  Religion 
was  essentially  considered  from  the  standpoint  of  intellectual  per- 
ception, and  even  Hegel  drew  the  line  between  Christianity  as  the 

'  De  natura  deorum,  ii,  28,  72.  ^  Divinarum  institutionum  libri,  iv,  28. 


448  HISTORY  OF  RELIGION 

"absolute  religion"  and  all  the  others.  An  important  contribution, 
however,  was  made  by  Schleiermacher,  who  recognized  that  religion 
is  essentially  a  feeling  of  dependence.  But  intellectual  prepossessions 
prevented  a  fruitful  use  immediately  of  this  recognition.  Only  as 
a  wider  acquaintance  with  religious  phenomena  was  gained,  a  keener 
historic  sense  was  developed,  and  a  more  objective  attitude  became 
possible,  was  the  time  ripe  for  more  adequate  definitions  of  religion. 

Max  Miiller  ^  defined  religion  as  "  a  mental  faculty  which  inde- 
pendent of,  nay,  in  spite  of  sense  and  reason,  enables  man  to  appre- 
hend the  infinite  under  different  names  and  under  varying  disguises." 
The  influence  of  certain  phases  of  the  thought  of  India  with  which  he 
was  so  thoroughly  familiar  is  quite  marked  in  this  definition.  Herein 
lies  much  of  its  value;  the  generalization  is  based  on  a  wider  range 
of  facts.  But  the  intellectual  aspect  is  again  too  exclusively  pre- 
sented. The  conflict  between  sense  and  reason  on  the  one  hand  and  the 
religious  faculty  on  the  other  is  too  strongly  emphasized  to  be  uni- 
versally true.  And  the  very  conception  of  religion  as  an  apprehension 
of  the  infinite  is,  in  spite  of  its  popularity,  open  to  the  most  serious 
objections.  There  is  no  evidence  whatever,  and  not  the  slightest 
probability,  that  man  in  the  earlier  stages  of  his  development  was 
able  to  conceive  of  infinity,  either  as  boundlessness  in  space,  or  as 
endlessness  in  time,  or  as  exhaustlessness  of  energy,  or  as  the  nega- 
tion of  all  limitations.  Nor  can  it  be  plausibly  affirmed  that  he  had 
even  a  vague  feeling  of  infinitude.  All  the  analogies  drawn  from 
observation  of  the  individual  in  infancy  and  early  childhood,  the 
mental  processes  of  savages,  and  the  oldest  recorded  utterances 
of  civilized  men  suggest  that  primitive  man  had  a  sense  of  the 
bigness  of  the  world  in  which  he  lived  and  the  variety  of  things  in  it, 
but  was  quite  incapable  of  either  feeling  or  apprehending  such  an 
abstraction  as  infinity.  When  Max  Miiller  ^  later  modified  his  defini- 
tion by  limiting  the  apprehension  of  the  infinite  to  "  such  manifesta- 
tions as  are  able  to  influence  the  moral  conduct  of  man,"  he  failed  to 
do  justice  to  the  unmistakable  fact  that  religion  and  morals  pursued 
somewhat  independent  courses  through  the  earlier  history  of  the 
human  race. 

Albert  Reville  '  gave  the  following  definition:  "Religion  is  the 
determination  of  human  life  by  the  consciousness  of  a  bond  uniting 
the  spirit  of  man  to  that  mysterious  spirit  whose  government  of  the 
world  and  of  himself  he  recognizes,  and  with  whom  he  loves  to  feel 
himself  united."  When  the  objective  reality  with  which  the  human 
spirit  enters  into  relations  is  described  as  a  "mysterious  spirit,"  it 
may  be  questioned  whether  the  predicate  "mysterious"  does  not 

^  Lectures  on  the  Origin  and  Growth  of  Religion,  as  illustrated  by  the  Religions  of 
India,  1880,  p.  23. 

*  Physical  Religion,  1891,  p.  294. 

*  Prolegorn  nes  de  I'histoire  des  religions,  1886,  p.  34. 


FUNDAMENTAL  CONCEPTIONS   AND   METHODS    449 

introduce  into  the  definition  an  element  which  entered  man's  religious 
life  only  at  a  comparatively  late  period  as  the  result  of  reflection, 
and  whether  the  term  "spirit"  does  not  exclude  such  a  religion  as 
Buddhism.  It  may  also  be  doubted  whether  love  is  necessarily  a  part 
of  rehgion.  Tiele  *  distinguished  between  the  forms  in  which  religion 
is  manifested,  consisting  of  words  and  deeds  and  the  constituents  of 
religion,  which  are  emotions,  conceptions,  and  sentiments  produced 
by  contact  with  some  higher  being  in  whose  power  man  feels  and 
perceives  himself  to  be,  and  with  whom  he  longs  to  come  into  touch. 
The  distinction  is  helpful;  but  it  is  difficult  to  see  how,  for  exam- 
ple, a  religion  like  Buddhism  could  be  covered  by  this  definition. 
Jastrow  2  defines  religion  as  "  the  natural  belief  in  a  power  or  powers 
beyond  our  control,  and  upon  whom  we  feel  ourselves  dependent; 
which  belief  and  feeling  prompt  to  organization,  to  specific  acts, 
and  to  the  regulation  of  conduct,  with  a  view  to  establishing 
favorable  relations  between  ourselves  and  the  power  or  powers  in 
question." 

The  present  writer  would  define  religion  as  the  consciousness  of 
some  power  manifest  in  nature,  determining  man's  destiny,  and  the 
ordering  of  his  life  in  harmony  vdth  its  demands.  "Consciousness" 
denotes  both  a  feeling  and  a  perception.  The  "power"  may  be  con- 
ceived of  as  a  personality  or  as  a  force  or  law,  as  unique  or  as  one 
of  a  species.  The  manifestation  in  nature  may  be  local  or  universal, 
temporary  or  permanent.  The  determination  may  be  regarded  as 
absolute  or  relative,  as  operating  within  or  without,  as  having  a 
moral  character  or  being  devoid  of  it.  "Destiny"  may  be  viewed 
as  related  to  external  condition,  resulting  from  the  action  of  this 
power,  or  internal  condition,  or  both.  The  ordering  of  life  may  pre- 
eminently affect  the  inner  disposition  of  the  individual,  the  trend 
of  his  feelings,  thoughts,  and  volitions,  or  the  outward  expressions, 
by  word  and  deed,  of  a  specific  or  a  general  character,  or  the  social 
consciousness  and  its  organized  forms  of  expression.  The  "harmony  " 
may  be  regarded  as  implying  external  conformity,  or  action  prompted 
by  subjective  perception  of  the  demands,  and  these  "demands" 
may  be  conceived  of  as  moral  or  non-moral,  as  arbitrary  expressions 
of  an  individual  will,  or  as  the  requirements  implied  in  the  cosmic 
order  for  the  attainment  of  certain  ends. 

This  definition  appears  to  cover  all  the  essential  aspects  of  religion 
and  all  important  phases  of  its  historic  manifestation.  It  leaves  out 
the  element  of  personal  intercourse  between  man  and  some  higher 
being,  since  this  is  not  universally  present  in  religion.  And  it  applies 
to  such  a  religion  as  Buddhism,  which  recognizes  a  law  manifest  in 
nature,  revealed  to  him  who  is  enlightened,  imposing  its  authority 

1  Elements  of  the  Science  of  Religion,  1899,  vol.  ii,  p.  1  ff. 
»  The  Study  of  Religion,  1901,  p.  171  ff. 


450  HISTORY  OF   RELIGION 

upon  him,  operating  within  him,  and  redeeming  him  from  desire, 
re-birth,  and  existence  itself.  It  Umits  the  term  to  certain  phenomena 
of  man's  hfe,  without  denying  the  existence  of  the  elements  out  of 
which  religion  has  developed  in  the  lower  forms  of  animal  life,  or 
assuming  to  indicate  the  point  in  the  process  of  evolution  where  a 
being  may  appropriately  be  designated  man,  or  attempting  to  decide 
whether  any  individual  of  the  species  man  is  now  or  ever  has  been 
without  religion. 

The  history  of  religion  as  thus  defined,  though  a  comparatively 
young  discipline,  has  already  been  able  to  occupy  and  maintain 
some  exceedingly  important  positions.  There  are  numerous  pro- 
blems left  for  future  generations  to  solve.  But  it  may  be  doubted 
whether  any  of  them  will  ever  be  of  such  fundamental  importance  or 
have  such  a  revolutionary  effect  upon  long-cherished  beliefs  as  the 
conceptions  now  fairly  established  by  historical  theology. 

The  first  of  these  fundamental  conceptions  is  that  all  religion  has 
the  same  origin.  The  distinction  once  made  between  natural  and 
revealed  religion  can  no  longer  be  maintained.  The  claim  to  be  based 
upon  a  special  revelation  is  a  common  characteristic  of  practically 
all  forms  of  religion.  Every  god  reveals  his  will  to  his  worshipers. 
The  thought  and  the  will  of  the  particular  divinity  may  be  proclaimed 
by  living  voices  only,  or  be  written  down  and  preserved  in  sacred 
books  for  the  guidance  of  coming  generations;  but  the  written 
oracles  are  not  essentially  different  from  the  spoken,  and  the  sacred 
writings  of  one  historic  religion  have  no  characteristics  indicating 
for  them  a  different  origin  from  that  of  the  holy  books  of  any  other 
religion.  However  strongly  convinced  Jews,  Christians,  Brahmins, 
Buddhists,  Mazdayasnians,  Mandaeans,  Muslims,  and  others  may  be 
that  their  own  sacred  books  have  a  character  so  different  from  all 
writings  for  which  similar  claims  have  been  made,  and  so  superior  to 
them,  that  a  common  origin  cannot  be  assumed,  historical  theology 
has  demonstrated  that  they  all  register  the  development  of  man's  relig- 
ious consciousness  in  different  times  and  places,  and  are  the  products 
of  essentially  the  same  mental  processes.  The  history  of  every  canon 
of  scriptures  shows  how  impossible  it  is  to  draw  the  circle  within 
which  the  alleged  special  revelation  is  contained.  The  history  of 
every  form  of  religion  shows  how  naturally  the  human  mind  operates 
with  such  conceptions  as  revelation  and  divine  inspiration.  It  is 
readily  seen  that  the  claims  of  infallibility  naturally  made  for  all 
sacred  writings  are  in  every  case  without  foundation.  If,  as  is  some- 
times maintained,  the  originals  of  these  writings  were  without  errors, 
while  such  are  found  in  our  present  copies,  the  number  and  character 
of  these  errors  may  seriously  affect  the  value  of  the  only  texts  to 
which  we  have  any  access,  while  there  is  no  means  of  verifying  a 
theory  concerning  the  original  copies  which  a  priori  lacks  all  plaus- 


FUNDAMENTAL  CONCEPTIONS  AND   METHODS     451 

ibility.  When  recourse- is  had  to  a  theory  of  divine  accommodation, 
the  facts  are  treated  more  respectfully,  but  they  are  left  where  they 
invite  a  more  natural  interpretation,  and  the  divine  "nature  is 
subdued  to  what  it  works  in,  like  the  dyer's  hand."  If  anything  in 
religion  is  revealed,  all  is  revealed.  There  is,  indeed,  no  objection  to 
the  use  of  the  term  revelation  if  by  it  is  meant  the  gradual  unfolding 
of  the  truth  to  man's  religious  consciousness.  But  as  long  as  it  sug- 
gests an  invidious  and  untenable  distinction  between  different  forms 
of  religion,  or  a  miraculous  communication  of  truth  to  man,  it  is  wise 
to  avoid  the  term. 

It  has  been  held  that  there  is  an  essential  difference  between 
ethnic  religions  and  religions  founded  by  eminent  personalities  in 
respect  of  their  origin  and  character.  Such  religions  as  Buddhism, 
Mazdaism,  Judaism,  Christianity,  and  Islam  have  exercised  so  vast 
an  influence  in  the  world,  presented  so  marked  a  contrast  with  the 
religions  whence  they  departed,  and  have  been  to  such  a  degree  char- 
acterized by  veneration  for  their  founders,  that  they  have  been  felt 
to  be  of  a  different  order,  having  their  origin  not  so  much  in  the 
common  tendencies  of  man's  religious  nature  as  in  the  inspiration, 
originality,  and  power  of  these  mighty  personalities.  But  this  dis- 
tinction is  defective  in  two  ways.  It  overestimates  the  originality 
of  a  few  great  religious  leaders,  and  it  fails  to  recognize  the  significance 
of  the  individual  initiative  in  all  forms  of  religion."  The  fact  that  great 
emphasis  has  been  placed  by  devoted  followers  on  a  personal  relation 
of  reverence  and  obedience  to  such  leaders  as  Gautama,  Zarathushtra, 
Moses,  Jesus,  and  Muhammad,  amounting  in  the  case  of  Gautama 
and  Jesus  to  divine  adoration  and  mystic  fellowship,  and  that  a 
mythical  drapery  has  been  placed  about  their  majestic  figures,  seems 
to  single  them  out  as  belonging  to  a  special  category  of  men,  who, 
if  they  did  not  step  directly  from  the  sky  bringing  with  them  celestial 
light  for  those  sitting  in  the  darkness,  at  least  drew  from  unfathomable 
depths  within  themselves  things  new  and  precious,  fit  to  meet  the 
spiritual  needs  of  mankind  for  all  time.  But  when  the  mythical  and 
legendary  element  is  removed  and  the  historic  facts  are  ascertained 
as  nearly  as  possible,  it  is  seen  that  these  men  builded  upon  founda- 
tions laid  by  others,  and  also  that  other  builders  followed  them 
without  whom  their  work  would  have  been  less  permanent.  It  is 
then  recognized  that  their  reaction  against  prevailing  tendencies 
and  traditions  was  but  a  stronger  impulse  in  the  same  direction  in 
which  myriads  of  other  souls  had  moved,  that  they  were  only  repre- 
sentatives of  that  progressive  element,  that  centrifugal  force,  that 
tendency  to  vary  from  the  type,  which,  in  human  history  as  else- 
where in  nature,  forms  the  counterpart  and  supplement  of  the  con- 
servative element,  the  centripetal  force,  the  tendency  to  preserve 
the  type. 


452  HISTORY   OF  RELIGION 

A  second  fundamental  conception  of  historical  theology  is  that 
all  religion  has  a  natural  origin  in  the  impression  made  by  nature 
upon  man  and  the  sense  of  obligation.  The  idea  that  all  religion  has 
the  same  origin,  but  that  this  origin  is  the  supernatural  revelation 
made  to  the  first  man,  can  no  longer  be  entertained.  There  was  no 
first  man.  By  scarcely  perceptible  changes  the  animal  was  gradually 
transformed  into  a  man,  and  the  children  are  not  likely  at  any  time 
to  have  been  so  unlike  their  parents  that  the  former  could  without 
hesitancy  and  with  justice  be  called  men,  while  the  latter  were 
designated  as  beasts.  The  various  myths  concerning  the  first  man 
have  no  historic  value,  and  there  is  no  evidence  that  man  in  the 
lowest  stages  of  his  development  cherished  religious  sentiments  of 
such  purity,  and  held  religious  conceptions  of  such  adequacy,  that 
they  can  only  be  accounted  for  by  a  miracle.  The  earliest  records  of 
civilized  men  in  the  valleys  of  the  Nile  and  the  Euphrates  do  not 
bear  out  the  frequently  made  assertion  that  they  were  monotheists, 
or  showed  signs  of  being  nearer  to  a  pristine  monotheism  than  their 
successors,  and  long  ages  lie  between  them  and  the  dawn  of  human 
intelligence  on  our  planet.  There  are  no  indications  of  the  supposed 
primitive  revelation. 

Religion  has  a  natural  origin.  The  elements  out  of  which  it  grew 
undoubtedly  existed  long  before  anything  like  the  present  type  of 
man  had  been  evolved.  The  immediate  ancestors  of  man  may  be 
supposed,  on  account  of  their  arboreal  habits  and  the  high  develop- 
ment of  their  prehensile  faculties  by  which  it  was  possible  for  them 
to  examine  things  closely,  to  have  had  extraordinarily  vivid  impres- 
sions of  the  objects  around  them  and  the  play  of  nature's  forces. 
The  prolonged  period  of  gestation  and  infancy  had  a  tendency  at 
once  to  develop  the  sense  of  dependence  and  the  consciousness  of 
the  sexual  life,  while  the  gregarious  instinct,  evoked  by  inferior 
physical  strength  and  superior  mentality,  aroused  a  keener  sense  of 
expediency  and  necessitated  social  adjustments.  As  the  expedient 
course  of  action,  commended  by  repeated  trial,  became  the  common 
law,  a  sense  of  obligation  to  follow  it  was  engendered,  and  deviation 
from  it  was  vaguely  felt  to  be  wrong.  The  religious  consciousness 
seems  to  have  arisen  through  a  union  of  this  sense  of  obligation, 
developed  in  social  relations,  with  the  feeling  of  dependence  upon 
powers  active  in  nature,  such  as  beasts,  reptiles,  birds,  and  fishes, 
stones,  mountains,  plants,  and  trees,  rain,  hail,  snow,  and  clouds, 
lightnings,  sky,  sun,  moon,  and  stars.  No  distinction  was,  at  the 
time  of  this  union,  made  between  animate  and  inanimate  objects, 
body  and  spirit.  Things  were  seen  side  by  side  on  a  horizontal  plane, 
and  not  one  above  another  in  an  ascending  scale.  They  were  man's 
kindred.  Now  one  thing,  now  another  impressed  him  with  a  feeling 
of  being  determined  by  it,  of  weakness  and  dependence,  and  led 


FUNDAMENTAL  CONCEPTIONS   AND   METHODS     453 

him  to  seek  to  enter  into  relations  with  it  of  the  same  nature  as  those 
which  he  sustained  to  his  closer  kith  and  kin. 

No  essential  element  of  religion  is  likely  to  have  been  wholly 
lacking  even  in  the  earliest  efflorescence  of  the  religious  conscious- 
ness.   A  real  animism,  a  conscious  personification  of  natural  objects 
and  forces,  had  not  yet  been  developed  by  reflective  introspection 
and  reasoning  from  analogy;   but  the  failure  to  distinguish  between 
animate  and  inanimate,  human  kind  and  other  kinds,  produced 
similar  religious  phenomena,  and  was  the  necessary  condition  for  the 
growth  of  animism.    There  was  no  ancestral  worship,  for  the  con- 
ception of  an  ancestry  was  wanting  and  there  was  no  reflection  on 
a  possible  survival  after  death;  but  the  relation  of  the  younger  to  the 
older  members  of  early  human  society  and  the  memory  of  the  dead 
prepared  the  way  for  the  establishment  of  ancestral  worship  when 
the  epoch-making  generalization  should  be  made  from  such  phe- 
nomena as  sleep,  trance,  and  apparent  death.     Totemism  was  not 
yet,  seeing  that  the  idea  of  descent  was  unknown  and  the  causal 
connection  between  sexual  intercourse  and  pregnancy  and  child- 
birth is  not  likely  to  have  been  perceived;   but  the  copulation  with 
animals,  from  which  it  originated  and  which  flourished  into  late 
historic  times,  must  in  the  earliest  ages  have  been  widely  prevalent. 
Tabuism    is  based  on  the  conception  of  a  special  communicable 
sanctity,  attaching  to  certain  objects   by  virtue  of  their  relation 
to  the  spirits  worshiped,  and  rendering  it  unlawful  to  touch  them 
or  to  use  them  for  ordinary  profane  purposes.    This  is  certainly  an 
idea  too  advanced  for  the  stage  here  considered;   but  the  first  step 
in  this  direction  is  taken  when  certain  things  become  the  objects 
of  special  religious  consideration.    Similarly,  fetishism,  which  seems 
essentially  to  consist  in  the  individual  appropriation  of  a  part  of  a 
sacred  object,  standing  as  the  representative  of  the  whole,  and 
bringing  all  its  virtues  to  the  owner,  implies  a  somewhat  advanced 
mode  of  reasoning,  though  the  fragrance  remaining  in  a  leaf  taken 
from  a  flower,  or  the  power  of  motion  preserved  in  the  tail  of  a 
reptile  severed  from  the  body,  may  easily  have  given  rise  to  it. 
Magic,  the  experimental  science  of  the  savage,  operates  with  the 
peculiar  word  by  whose  subtle  power  it  can  call  forth  and  conjure 
the  spirits,  and  the  peculiar  act  by  which  extraordinary  benefits 
may  be  derived  from  them.    Its  development  is  no  doubt  dependent 
upon  the  early  growth  of  human  speech,  and  though  possibly  not 
coeval  with  the  awakening  of  the  religious  consciousness  in  man, 
it  touches  that  epoch  with  some  of  its  constituent  elements.    The 
roots  of  all  these  ideas  and  practices  go  back  to  the  very  origin  of 
religion.    They  are  likely  to  have  extended  through  the  major  part 
of  the  long  palaeolithic  age  before  the  earliest  tombs  announce  the 
new  stage  of  religious  development  to  which  neolithic  man  has 


454  HISTORY   OF   RELIGION 

advanced.  A  more  definite  date  cannot  at  present  be  assigned  by 
history  to  the  origin  of  reUgion. 

A  third  fundamental  conception  of  historical  theology  is  that  all 
religion  is  subject  to  the  same  laws  of  development.  It  can  find  no  excep- 
tions. Whether  the  manifestations  of  the  reUgious  consciousness 
are  of  a  high  or  a  low  order,  they  appear  in  their  necessary  causal 
connection  with  what  precedes  and  what  follows,  in  their  proper 
place  in  the  course  of  development  determined  by  the  operation  of 
laws  that  are  based  on  the  constitution  of  the  human  mind  and  of 
the  universe.  These  tendencies  are  discernible  in  the  lowest  stages 
of  man's  life  known  to  us  as  well  as  in  all  subsequent  stages.  Hence 
the  impossibility  of  indicating  an  absolute  starting-point  for  the 
religious  development,  either  in  a  particular  idea  or  practice,  or  in 
a  particular  period. 

The  attempt  to  demonstrate  that  religion  began  with  animism, 
or  ancestral  worship,  or  totemism,  or  worship  of  the  celestial  phe- 
nomena, or  with  the  attention  paid  to  any  particular  group  of 
objects,  has  not  been  successful.  It  is  indeed  obvious  that  an  in- 
tense occupation  with  the  terrestrial  powers  constantly  affecting 
man's  life  preceded  an  equally  keen  interest  in  the  luminaries  in  the 
sky  which  are  more  remote  and  apparently  have  less  concern  about 
man.  But  the  majestic  object  striding  across  the  heaven  in  the  light 
of  the  day,  as  well  as  the  beings  peopling  the  sky  in  the  darkness  of 
the  night,  and  their  struggles  with  clouds  and  other  hostile  powers, 
must  have  attracted  man's  attention  long  before  the  practical  ne- 
cessities of  his  developing  social  life  made  him  aware  of  his  depend- 
ence upon  them.  The  analogies  furnished  by  the  infancy  of  the 
individual  and  the  ideas  of  savages  suggest  that  the  religious  con- 
sciousness of  primitive  man  included  a  great  variety  of  elements  in 
rudimentary  form,  of  which  some  found  a  fuller  development  in  one 
race  or  physical  environment,  some  in  another. 

This  fundamental  conception  of  a  development  according  to  law 
also  implies  that  no  historic  phase  of  religion  can  have  the  character 
of  finality.  The  claim  to  finality  has  been  freely  made,  especially 
where  the  religious  consciousness  has,  as  it  were,  crystallized  itself  in 
laws,  sacred  writings,  and  creedal  statements.  These  seem  to  say, 
"Thus  far  thou  shalt  go,  and  no  farther!"  The  Vedas  or  the  Tripi- 
taka,  the  Avesta  or  the  Torah,  the  New  Testament  or  the  Qur'an 
appear  to  fix  the  limits  beyond  which  there  is  no  further  reUgious 
truth  to  discover  and  no  higher  reUgious  life  is  possible.  The  ven- 
eration for  a  founder  has  a  special  tendency  to  foster  the  conviction 
that  all  religious  truth  must  have  been  seen  by  him  and  that  the 
religious  development  of  his  followers  is  but  the  unfolding  of  his 
thought.  Historical  theology  has  shown  the  fallacy  of  any  such 
assumption.    Christianity,  for  instance,  has  only  one  of  its  roots  in 


FUNDAMENTAL   CONCEPTIONS  AND  METHODS    455 

the  thought  and  hfe  of  Jesus,  and  it  is  in  a  state  of  constant  flux.  In 
so  far  as  it  is  possible  to  ascertain  what  Jesus  said,  and  did,  and  was, 
his  teaching  and  manner  of  Ufe  leave  the  impression  of  incalculable 
worth,  but  not  of  absolute  finality. 

The  evolution  of  man's  religious  life  is  not  along  a  straight  line, 
so  that  it  would  be  possible  to  declare  "post  hoc  ergo  propter  hoc."  A 
subsequent  phenomenon  may  be  determined  by  a  number  of  other 
factors  beside  the  one  from  which  it  may  seem  to  be  immediately 
derived.  The  Yajur-Veda  is  unquestionably  later  than  the  Rig- Veda, 
but  the  religious  ideas  it  contains  are  not  to  be  explained  as  the 
natural  development  of  those  found  in  the  earlier  work,  seeing  that 
the  change  of  physical  environment  from  the  valley  of  the  Indus  to 
that  of  the  Ganges  and  the  new  racial  element  in  the  latter  place  seem 
to  have  entered  in  as  modifying  factors.  In  the  development  of 
Christianity,  the  genuine  nucleus  of  the  Pauline  literature  no  doubt 
follows  closely  upon  the  very  different  type  of  faith  held  by  the 
immediate  disciples  of  Jesus;  but  the  peculiarities  of  the  former 
are  not  to  be  explained  as  having  been  derived  from  the  latter,  since 
they  are  manifestly  due  to  a  wholly  divergent  tendency  of  thought 
prevalent  in  the  Greek-speaking  branch  of  Jewry.  Such  phenomena 
do  not  in  the  least  invalidate  the  conclusion  as  to  the  law-bound 
development  of  religious  life. 

So  strongly  intrenched  is  this  conviction  of  a  natural  development 
in  historical  theology  that  it  has  to  some  extent  been  used  as  a  means 
of  determining  the  relative  age  of  undated  documents.  In  some 
striking  instances  such  conclusions  have  been  subsequently  verified 
or  confirmed  by  other  indications  of  date.  Thus  there  can  be  little 
doubt  that  the  Hegelian  conception  of  an  historic  development  of 
reUgion  according  to  the  fixed  laws  that  determine  the  unfolding  of 
the  ideal  contents  of  human  consciousness,  led  investigators  of  the 
Old  Testament  to  the  conviction  that  large  sections  of  the  Pentateuch 
were  later  than  the  great  prophetic  movement  in  Israel,  or  that  the 
doctrine  of  evolution  formulated  as  the  result  of  biological  studies 
exercised  a  determining  influence  in  commending  these  conclusions 
to  competent  and  independent  students  in  more  recent  times.  Yet 
they  now  rest  upon  philological,  literary,  and  historical  data  sufficient 
in  themselves  to  prove  the  contention.  If  it  seems  impossible  at 
present  to  solve  in  a  similar  manner  such  a  perplexing  problem  as 
that  concerning  the  age  of  the  Gathas  and  their  relation  to  other 
parts  of  the  Avesta,  it  is  not  because  the  principle  is  likely  to  render 
less  service  in  this  case,  but  because  a  chronologically  fixed  point 
is  lacking,  and  because  it  is  not  known  in  what  country  the  peculiar 
dialect  of  the  Gathas  was  spoken.  If  it  should  become  possible  to 
prove  that  this  was  the  speech  of  Bactria,  where  contact  with  India 
may  at  a  comparatively  early  time  have  produced  a  type  of  thought 


456  HISTORY   OF  RELIGION 

which  in  Adherbeijan  can  scarcely  have  appeared  until  much  later, 
the  place  of  the  earliest  part  of  the  Avestan  literature  may  yet  be 
found  through  considerations  drawn  from  the  natural  history  of 
ideas. 

There  is,  no  doubt,  in  the  evolution  of  religion,  a  general  upward 
trend,  caused  by  the  growth  of  man's  experience,  the  expansion  of 
his  knowledge,  and  the  education  of  his  sense  of  expediency.  Advance 
in  civilization  invariably  brings  with  it  more  adequate  religious 
conceptions  and  more  rational  and  profitable  expressions  of  the 
religious  consciousness.  There  is  an  unmistakable  tendency  away 
from  polydemonism  and  polytheism  to  mOnolatry,  monotheism, 
pantheism,  and  ethical  monism,  from  myth-making  to  science,  from 
religious  sexualism  to  mysticism,  from  human  and  animal  sacrifices 
to.  spiritual  consecration,  from  magic  and  sacramentalism  to  the 
spontaneous  symbolism  of  art,  from  a  loose  to  a  more  and  more 
intimate  connection  with  morality.  But  the  progress  is  not  uniform. 
The  growth  is  slower  in  some  races  and  peoples  than  in  others.  There 
is  degeneracy  or  reversion  to  earlier  types.  It  is  important,  however, 
to  observe  that  all  apparent  reversions  to  earlier  forms  of  religion 
are  not  indications  of  real  retrogression.  Sometimes  whole  systems 
of  thought  and  practice,  having  had  their  day  of  usefulness,  loosen 
their  hold  upon  the  maturing  religious  consciousness,  and  there 
seems  to  be  a  return  to  the  simpler  forms  prevalent  before  their 
development,  while  in  reality  there  is  an  advance,  the  contents  of  the 
religious  consciousness  having  been  immeasurably  enriched  by  the 
spiritual  experience  mediated  through  the  very  ideas  and  ceremonies 
which  must  at  length  pass  away. 

A  fourth  fundamental  conception  is  that  all  differences  in  religion 
are  due  to  peculiarities  of  the  physical  environment,  the  psychical  de- 
velopment, and  the  social  conditions.  In  spite  of  great  distances  in 
space,  the  absence  of  any  ascertainable  historic  contact,  and  the 
most  far-reaching  racial  differences,  there  are  very  marked  similari- 
ties between  peoples  living  in  similar  natural  surroundings,  as  on  the 
shores  of  the  sea,  on  vast  plains,  or  in  mountain  regions.  Climate, 
vegetation,  and  animal  life  affect  the  character  of  men.  The  class  of 
natural  objects  that  chiefly  attracts  man's  attention  and  arouses  his 
religious  feeling  exercises  substantially  the  same  influence  every- 
where upon  his  ideas  and  customs.  If  the  religion  of  the  Polynesians 
resembles  in  some  aspects  that  of  the  Greeks,  it  is  because  of  the 
similarity  of  their  physical  environment.  Peoples  roaming  in  the 
desert  do  not  worship  the  same  gods  as  those  that  go  down  to  the  sea 
in  ships,  and  men  living  in  volcanic  regions,  terrified  by  eruptions 
and  earthquakes,  have  a  different  religious  outlook  into  the  future 
from  that  of  dwellers  in  a  land  rarely  exposed  to  violent  disturb- 
ances.   The  offerings  to  the  gods  are  determined  by  the  natural  pro- 


FUNDAMENTAL  CONCEPTIONS   AND   METHODS    457 

ducts  of  the  land,  and  the  character  of  these  offerings  affects  not 
only  the  cult  but  the  whole  religious  Ufe. 

If  the  mental  development  of  a  people  is  thus  to  a  marked  extent 
the  reflection  of  the  natural  surroundings  in  which  it  hves,  the  indi- 
viduals composing  it  show  varying  degrees  of  susceptibility  to  im- 
pressions by  this  environment.  Just  in  proportion  to  the  depth  and 
variety  of  these  impressions,  and  the  consequent  richness  of  the 
intellectual  hfe,  divergent  types  of  thought  and  differing  customs 
develop.  These  differences  are  reflected  in  the  religious  Ufe.  There  is 
more  variety  of  religious  belief,  more  spontaneity  and  diversity  of 
religious  practice.  Heresies  and  schisms  are  indications  of  religious 
vitality.  It  is  not  an  accident  that  Syria,  Greece,  and  Germany  have 
been  fruitful  in  new  departures  of  religious  thought,  and  particularly 
so  in  periods  marked  by  intellectual  progress  in  various  directions. 

If  social  conditions  and  institutions  are  unquestionably  deter- 
mined by  physical  environment  and  mental  development,  it  is 
equally  certain  that  they  in  turn  exercise  a  profound  influence  upon 
the  physical  and  intellectual  growth  of  the  individual,  and  con- 
sequently also  upon  his  religious  character,  whether  he  yields  more 
easily  to  the  impression  or  reacts  against  it.  The  regime  of  tribal 
gods  warring  one  with  another  is  the  natural  complement  of  the 
tribal  organization  of  society.  The  members  of  a  small  tribe  may  say 
unto  their  tutelary  divinity,  "  Who  among  the  gods  is  like  unto  thee?  " 
And  they  may  serve  the  god  of  their  fathers  with  such  intensity  of 
devotion  that  to  some  extent  they  ignore  all  other  gods.  But  they 
cannot  cease  to  believe  in  the  existence  of  other  gods,  or  even  degrade 
these  gods  into  a  lower  class  of  beings,  until  the  social  development 
renders  possible  a  broader  outlook.  This  may  come  by  the  poUtical 
organization  of  empires;  it  may  also  be  brought  about  by  the  loosen- 
ing of  tribal  connections  through  wider  social  contact.  It  is  evident 
that  the  great  Persian,  Greek,  and  Roman  empires  had  a  tendency  to 
lead  religious  thought  to  more  transcendental  and  unitarian  concep- 
tions of  divinity.  The  little  gods  fell  from  their  thrones  with  the  Uttle 
kings  and  grouped  themselves  as  servants  around  the  celestial 
"king  of  kings."  It  is  also  obvious  that  the  close  contact  between 
men  of  different  blood,  speech,  and  customs,  within  the  same  political 
organization,  tended  to  force  into  the  background  the  accidental 
in  religion,  the  mere  tribal  peculiarities,  however  tenacious  the 
resistance  may  have  been  here  and  there.  As  monarchical  institu- 
tions yield  to  democracy,  the  religious  life  inevitably  undergoes 
profound  changes.  When  the  rights  of  every  man  and  woman  to 
a  share  in  the  direction  of  pubUc  affairs  become  recognized,  and  the 
administration  of  public  business  becomes  the  work,  not  of  rulers, 
but  of  servants  chosen  by  the  people  for  their  fitness,  the  state 
gradually  ceases  to  have  an  official  cult,  and  to  take  cognizance  of, 


458  HISTORY  OF   RELIGION 

support,  or  suppress  any  form  of  religion.  Religion  becomes  a  strictly 
private  affair.  Social  institutions  such  as  warfare,  slavery,  capitalism, 
marriage  and  divorce,  oath-taking,  and  others  have  exercised  a  very 
marked  influence,  not  only  on  religious  views,  but  also  on  the  ex- 
pressions in  practical  life  of  the  religious  feeling. 

Significant  as  are  the  results  which  have  been  obtained  by  his- 
torical theology,  the  methods  of  this  science  are  not  less  so.  A  higher 
degree  of  certainty  concerning  the  facts  of  man's  religious  life  in  the 
past,  a  clearer  discernment  of  the  laws  governing  its  historical  develop- 
ment, and  a  surer  forecast  of  the  future  depend  upon  the  accuracy 
and  efficiency  of  the  methods  that  are  employed. 

These  are  the  general  methods  of  science  applied  to  the  history 
of  religion.  In  this  field  they  may  be  distinguished  as  historico- 
critical,  comparative,  and  ps3'^chological.  The historico-critical  method 
gathers,  sifts,  and  describes  the  theological  material  in  so  far  as  it 
reveals  the  growth  of  religion  and  the  laws  of  its  development.  It 
finds  this  material  in  the  realms  of  philology,  archaeology,  literary 
documents,  oral  tradition,  and  folk-lore,  and  subjects  its  evidential 
value  to  searching  scrutiny.  On  account  of  the  excesses  of  some 
students,  the  philological  method  has  been  much  discredited,  but 
no  amount  of  incidental  error  can  invalidate  the  use  of  indications 
in  human  speech,  such  as  names  of  divinities  and  cult-objects,  in 
reconstructing  the  history  of  religion.  For  the  earlier  periods,  we 
have  no  other  direct  testimony  of  man's  religious  conceptions  than 
archaeological  remains,  such  as  tombs,  altars,  dolmens,  menhirs,  and 
the  like.  In  the  study  of  literary  documents,  textual  criticism  is  of 
fundamental  importance,  as  false  conclusions  have  frequently  been 
drawn  from  texts  that  on  closer  examination  have  proved  to  be 
corrupt.  But  investigations  as  to  date  and  authorship  are  also 
indispensable,  since  the  value  of  testimony  depends  upon  nearness 
in  time  and  space  and  competence  in  perceiving  and  describing 
facts.  In  the  case  of  uncivilized  nations  the  evidence  rests  ultimately 
on  oral  statements  and,  so  far  as  their  history  is  concerned,  on  oral 
tradition.  Much  allowance  must  here  be  made  for  the  medium 
through  which  the  testimony  comes.  The  same  necessity  applies  to 
folk-lore.  While  there  can  be  little  doubt  that  it,  to  some  extent, 
represents  the  disintegration  of  earlier  myths  and  legends,  the  -in- 
fluence of  the  civilization  in  which  they  have  in  this  form  survived 
must  be  considered,  and  the  production  of  new  material  resembling 
the  old,  without  having  any  genetic  connection  with  it,  must  not  be 
overlooked.  It  is  seldom  that  survivals  of  earlier  religious  conditions 
reveal  their  nature  as  clearly  in  a  new  environment  as  ideas  and 
practices  do  where,  for  one  cause  or  another,  the  religious  develop- 
ment has  been  arrested  or  retarded. 

The  comparative  method  places  side  by  side  the  different  expres- 


FUNDAMENTAL  CONCEPTIONS  AND  METHODS    459 

sions  of  the  religious  consciousness,  notes  their  similarities  and  differ- 
ences, and  classifies  them,  in  so  far  as  by  this  process  it  seems  possible 
to  determine  the  growth  of  religion  and  the  laws  on  which  it  is  based. 
The  comparison  may  extend  to  entire  systems  of  religious  thought 
and  practice,  or  only  to  individual  ideas,  rites,  institutions,  or  rules 
of  conduct.  In  comparing  and  classifying  those  historic  systems 
that  have  generally  been  called  religions,  much  attention  is  given 
to  the  principle  of  classification.  It  is  difficult  to  avoid  artificiality  in 
the  selection  of  the  most  characteristic  feature.  In  the  course  of  its 
history  each  great  religion  has  undergone  so  many  important  changes 
that  what  at  one  time  seems  the  most  significant  characteristic  at 
another  time  is  no  longer  a  peculiarly  marked  feature.  There  is  no 
belief  or  ceremony  in  Christendom  of  which  the  formula  quod  semper, 
ubique  et  ah  omnibus  could  be  truthfully  used.  The  differences  be- 
tween Denck  and  Luther,  or  between  Martineau  and  Newman, 
were  not  more  radical  and  far-reaching  than  those  between  Jesus  and 
Paul.  If  Christianity  were  so  defined  as  to  make  the  leading  ideas  and 
practices  of  a  Paul,  an  Augustine,  an  Aquinas,  and  a  Luther  its  true 
exponents,  the  emphasis  would  be  placed  upon  thoughts  and  customs 
foreign  to  Jesus  himself.  If,  on  the  other  hand,  his  convictions  and 
manner  of  life  were  made  the  norm,  the  definition  would  exclude 
some  of  the  most  characteristic  doctrines  and  rites  of  Christians 
since  the  first  century.  Similar  difficulties  are  encountered  in  the 
case  of  Judaism.  To  make  Judaism  synonymous  with  Talmudic 
Rabbinism  would  not  be  correct,  in  view  of  the  abundant  evidence 
of  strong  currents  in  Israel's  religious  life  setting  in  other  directions, 
even  if  the  ethical  and  religious  elements  in  the  Talmudic  literature 
were  accorded  a  juster  and  more  adequate  appreciation  than  is 
usually  the  case.  And  the  Buddhism  of  Buddha  is  quite  a  different 
thing  from  the  Buddhism  of  the  Lama  of  Tibet.  Yet  though  the 
task  of  classifying  the  different  forms  of  religion  is  deUcate  and 
difficult,  it  is  neither  impossible  nor  unprofitable.  When  Brahmanism, 
Mazdaism,  and  Judaism  are  grouped  together  as  legal  religions,  and 
Buddhism  and  Christianity  as  religions  of  redemption,  any  inadequacy 
in  the  classification  is  more  than  offset  by  the  advantage  of  approach- 
ing these  religions  from  a  common  point  of  view. 

In  comparing  ideas  and  customs  that  show  a  marked  similarity, 
though  found  in  different  nations,  it  is  natural  to  suppose  that  one 
people  has  borrowed  from  another.  Where  historic  contact  can  be 
proved  or  is  likely,  a  considerable  degree  of  probability  often  at- 
taches to  such  an  assumption.  But  in  many  cases,  even  where  the 
resemblance  is  striking,  the  theory  is  both  improbable  and  unneces- 
sary, while  in  other  cases  the  limitations  of  our  historic  knowledge 
renders  a  decision  extremely  precarious.  Thus,  to  quote  a  few 
examples,  there  can  scarcely  be  any  doubt  that  the  myths  in  Genesis 


460  HISTORY  OF  RELIGION 

concerning  the  creation,  the  garden  of  the  gods,  the  deluge,  and  the 
tower  were  derived  by  the  IsraeUtes  from  Babylonia;  that  some 
figures  in  later  Jewish  apocalyptic  have  the  same  origin;  that  the 
idea  of  a  resurrection  came  to  the  Jews  from  Persia,  and  that  the 
figures  of  Satan  and  some  other  demons,  as  well  as  the  archangels, 
were  developed  under  Persian  influence;  that  the  Christian  Logos- 
idea  came  through  Philo  from  Greek  philosophy;  and  that  Mu- 
hammad drew  some  of  his  ideas  from  Christian  and  Jewish  sources. 
No  such  probability  attaches  to  the  conjectures  that  Varuna  and 
some  other  Indian  gods  had  a  Semitic  origin;  that  the  Gathas  were 
written  under  the  influence  of  Greek  thought;  that  the  Christian 
gospels  contain  ideas  borrowed  directly  from  Buddhism;  that  there 
were  in  the  Greek  pantheon  some  originally  Phoenician  gods;  that 
the  great  gods  of  Egypt  during  the  Old  Empire  were  identical  with 
the  chief  divinities  of  Babylonia;  that  the  author  of  Voluspa  was 
familiar  with  Christian  ideas;  or  that  the  religious  conceptions  of  the 
American  aborigines  were  derived  from  the  Mongolians  of  Asia. 
Far  greater  difficulties  are  encountered  when  the  attempt  is  made  to 
determine  such  questions  as  the  precise  relations  between  Jainism 
and  Buddhism,  Mazdaism  and  the  faith  of  the  Iranians  before  the 
reform,  the  gods  of  the  Semitic  Babylonians  and  those  of  the  Shu- 
merians,  the  Baptists  on  the  Jordan  and  those  on  the  Euphrates,  the 
Christology  of  the  Parables  of  Enoch  and  that  of  the  early  church, 
the  Christian  and  the  Mithraic  cult-societies,  the  reported  beliefs  of 
the  Druids  and  Greek  speculation,  the  tabus  of  the  different  groups 
of  islands  in  the  Pacific,  and  many  others. 

The  more  carefully  the  comparative  method  is  applied,  the  more 
sparingly  recourse  is  had  to  the  theory  of  borrowing.  Even  where 
there  is  satisfactory  evidence  of  an  historic  transfer  of  ideas  or  cus- 
toms, distinction  is  made  between  the  taking  over  of  a  mere  sugges- 
tion subsequently  developed  in  an  original  manner  and  a  more 
extensive  and  unassimilated  appropriation.  The  Greeks,  for  instance, 
put  so  completely  the  stamp  of  their  own  genius  on  what  they  bor- 
rowed that  the  ultimate  origin  cannot  easily  be  detected,  and  the 
addition  is  often  more  significant  than  the  material  appropriated.  A 
similar  transformation  may  be  seen  in  the  case  of  the  myths  borrowed 
by  the  Hebrews  from  other  peoples.  But  at  present  there  is  a  strong 
reaction  against  the  tendency  of  earlier  interpreters  to  explain  in 
this  manner  the  occurrence  in  different  places  of  substantially  the 
same  conceptions  or  practices.  The  similarities  are  more  frequently 
accounted  for  by  the  similarity  of  the  natural  phenomena  giving  rise 
to  the  peculiar  religious  beliefs  and  of  the  social  conditions  reflected 
in  the  cult.  The  limitations  of  the  human  mind  and  the  laws  of  its 
operation  are  such  as  to  force  it  into  certain  channels;  and  the 
customs  of  human  society  dictate  the  forms  of  intercourse  with  divine 


FUNDAMENTAL  CONCEPTIONS   AND  METHODS     461 

society.  Methodical  research  finds  such  abundant  testimony  to  this 
close  connection  of  religion,  in  all  its  manifestations,  with  the  mental 
development  of  man,  and  such  clear  indications  of  the  general 
course  of  religious  evolution  determined  by  this  growth  of  human 
faculty,  that  it  is  obliged  to  proceed  on  the  assumption  of  the  validity 
of  the  principle  everywhere,  even  if  the  material  should  sometimes 
be  insufficient  for  demonstration,  or  apparent  exceptions  present 
themselves. 

The  psychological  method  sets  forth  and  seeks  to  explain  the 
relation  of  the  genesis  and  development  of  religion  to  the  growth  of 
man's  sentient,  intellectual,  and  moral  life.  The  fields  in  which  this 
method  finds  employment  may  be  designated  as  child-psychology, 
folk-psychology,  pathological  psychology,  and  the  psychology  of 
genius.  Much  may  be  learned  from  observations  of  child-life  con- 
cerning the  earliest  stages  of  man's  religion.  Man,  the  individual, 
runs  quickly  over  the  same  course  that  is  more  slowly  covered  by 
man,  the  race,  and  the  mental  processes  of  the  race  in  its  childhood 
must  have  borne  a  close  resemblance  to  those  observable  in  the 
child.  It  is  necessary,  however,  to  make  allowance  both  for  ancestry 
and  immediate  environment.  The  psychical  phenomena  of  collective 
life  which  come  nearest  to  those  of  childhood  are  presented  by 
peoples  whose  development,  through  unfavorable  circumstances, 
has  been  retarded.  Here  again  the  results  of  degeneracy  must  be 
sharply  distinguished  from  survivals.  When  more  advanced  religious 
organizations,  whether  they  be  states  with  an  official  creed  and  cult 
or  purely  cult-societies,  are  studied  in  their  relations  to  the  general 
mental  development,  it  is  important  to  note  the  aesthetic  and  ethical 
phases  as  well  as  the  intellectual,  and  to  observe  the  tendency  of 
tradition  to  incorporate  and  assimilate  new  ideas  and  practices, 
after  testing  their  practical  effect,  as  well  as  its  tendency  to  conserve 
the  past  and  to  resist  novelties  when  they  arise.  The  obvious  con- 
nection between  some  phases  of  religion  and  a  conception  of  the 
universe  based  on  the  defective  generalizations  of  astrology  does 
not  lead  the  careful  student  to  the  hasty  conclusion  that  either 
priest  or  astrologer  must  have  been  guilty  of  a  conscious  and  inten- 
tional fraud.  There  is  no  more  reason  to  doubt  the  sincerity  of  con- 
viction and  intellectual  and  moral  integrity  of  the  average  sooth- 
sayer, priest,  magician,  or  witch  of  the  past  than  of  the  average 
official  representative  of  any  modern  religious  cult. 

Among  the  types  of  religious  experience  deviating  from  the  ordin- 
ary forms  there  are  those  that  may  be  regarded  as  due  to  morbid 
physical  and  psychical  conditions,  and  there  are  others  that  are 
due  to  the  extraordinary  development  of  the  faculties  which  find 
expression  in  the  religious  Ufe.  Unquestionably,  hysteria,  melan- 
cholia, catalepsy,  epilepsy,  trances,  and  hallucinations  have  played 


462  HISTORY  OF   RELIGION 

an  important  role  in  the  history  of  religion.  It  is  all  the  more  neces- 
sary to  investigate  those  pathological  conditions  in  their  relation  to 
the  reUgious  sensibilities,  as  some  of  the  most  important  forward 
movements  in  religion  have  been  connected  with  such  psychical 
manifestations.  The  keen  sensibility,  protracted  reflection,  warm 
sympathy,  great  reverence,  and  marked  freedom,  characteristic  of 
religious  genius,  sometimes  produce  effects  that  to  a  superficial 
observer  may  seem  to  betray  the  same  morbid  concentration,  while 
a  more  methodical  study  tends  to  show  that  the  sanest  expressions 
of  the  religious  life  are  to  be  found  in  the  great  prophetic  order  of 
mankind. 

Not  less  important  than  the  methods  employed  is  the  mental 
attitude  of  the  investigator.  In  fact,  his  disposition  is  itself  a  means 
of  advancing  or  retarding  scientific  progress,  A  wrong  bias  of  the 
historian's  mind  will  inevitably  affect  the  results,  even  if  there  is 
the  appearance  of  a  correct  scientific  method.  To  reach  legitimate 
conclusions,  the  student  of  the  history  of  religion  must  cultivate  a 
frame  of  mind  characterized  by  sympathy,  reverence,  and  freedom. 
Without  a  fellow-feeling  enabling  him  to  put  himself  in  another 
man's  place,  look  at  the  world  through  his  eyes,  experience  some- 
thing of  his  sensations,  and  feel  an  involuntary  prompting  to  join 
in  his  acts,  his  religious  life  will  be  a  sealed  book.  Sympathy  alone 
gives  insight;  and  this  sympathy  must  be  comprehensive  as  well 
as  deep  and  genuine.  In  order  to  interpret  rightly  the  manifold 
varieties  of  religious  experience,  one  must  be  able  to  sympathize 
with  the  priest  and  the  devotee,  as  well  as  with  the  prophet  and  the 
philosopher. 

Nor  is  it  sufficient  that  this  sympathy  should  be  the  consciousness 
of  a  common  religious  life,  which  might  be  nothing  but  the  fellow- 
ship of  prisoners  in  the  same  jail  or  inmates  in  the  same  hospital. 
There  must  be  a  sense  of  reverence,  a  feeling  of  the  worth  of  religion 
even  in  its  humblest  manifestations.  Such  reverence  does  not  imply 
respect  or  admiration  for  the  absurd  and  the  grotesque,  for  ideas  and 
customs  out  of  harmony  with  the  civilization  in  which  they  main- 
tain themselves  as  useless  or  harmful  superstitions.  The  immaturity 
of  infancy  in  the  individual  or  the  race  is  not  to  be  despised ;  puerility 
in  the  man  and  the  survivals  of  crude  notions  and  senseless  customs 
in  an  advanced  civilization  may  be  legitimate  cause  for  pity  or 
laughter.  But  true  reverence  prompts  a  student  to  approach  the 
realm  of  religion  as  holy  ground  where  man's  sense  of  the  highest  in 
life  has  found  its  preeminent  expression. 

Yet  the  judgment  of  the  historian  would  be  sadly  warped,  if  he 
should  allow  his  sympathy  and  reverence  to  deprive  him  of  his 
freedom.  There  is  nothing  so  sacred  in  the  universe  that  the  mind  of 
man  has  not  the  right  to  touch  it.     Without  hesitancy  the  true 


FUNDAMENTAL  CONCEPTIONS  AND  METHODS    463 

historian  of  religion  will  trespass  on  forbidden  grounds  and  search 
through  all  mysteries.  He  cannot  be  the  slave  of  a  school,  the  advo- 
cate of  a  sect,  or  the  apologist  for  a  religion.  He  must  be  free  to 
treat  objectively,  yet  sympathetically  and  reverently,  the  growth 
of  the  religious  consciousness. 

The  historian  is  too  painfully  aware  of  the  fragmentariness  of  his 
k  knowledge  of  the  past,  though  it  is  vocal  with  innumerable  voices 

bearing  witness  to  its  life,  to  venture  readily  upon  prediction  of  the 
silent  future  of  which  no  man  can  testify.  The  history  of  prophecy 
shows  him  how  hazardous  it  is  to  try  to  rend  the  veil  of  the  future 
in  order  to  reveal  events  that  will  occur  or  personalities  that  will 
appear  in  ages  to  come.  Even  the  wisest  of  prophets  have  failed 
when  they  endeavored  to  clothe  in  flesh  and  blood  their  waking 
dreams.  Yet  ignorance  has  its  limitations  as  well  as  knowledge. 
If  a  man  should  affirm  that  his  ignorance  is  such  that  he  cannot 
deny  the  possibility  of  every  Roman  Catholic  becoming  a  Protestant, 
or  every  Buddhist  a  Christian,  before  another  day  shall  dawn,  his 
claim  to  ignorance  would  not  be  respected.  The  Church  of  Rome 
was  not  built  in  one  day,  and  it  is  perfectly  safe  to  predict  that  it  will 
not  perish  in  one  day  by  the  conversion  of  all  its  members  to  another 
faith;  and  the  same  is  true  of  Buddhism. 

Certain  things  may  be  predicted,  with  a  reasonable  degree  of  assur- 
ance, in  regard  to  the  future  of  man's  religion,  and  the  historian, 
watching  the  evolution  of  the  religious  consciousness  and  seeking  to 
discern  its  laws,  is  more  likely  than  any  other  man  to  take  a  deep 
and  intelligent  interest  in  what  may  be  divined  concerning  that  future. 
The  remnants  of  primitive  conceptions  are  disappearing  so  fast  by  the 
spread  of  civilization  that  the  time  cannot  be  far  off  when  they  shall 
have  ceased  to  play  a  part  in  religion.  Polydemonism  and  poly- 
theism are  giving  place  to  monotheism,  and  the  trend  is  away  from 
transcendental  monotheism  to  pantheism  or  ethical  monism.  New 
mythologies  are  not  developing,  and  the  old  myths  vanish  as  science 
advances.  Human  sacrifices  are  extremely  rare,  and  animal  sacrifices* 
are  gradually  disappearing.  The  magical  conceptions  surviving  in 
the  cult  are  giving  way  to  a  symbolism  that  seeks  satisfaction  for  the 
artistic  and  ethical  instincts.  Even  where  sacred  washings,  sacred 
meals,  sacred  days,  and  sacred  places  are  still  recognized,  their  sig- 
nificance is  differently  understood,  and  the  tendency  to  abandon 
them  altogether  is  marked.  The  emphasis  is  being  placed,  not  on 
dogma  or  cult,  but  on  the  ethical  contents  of  religion. 

The  growing  importance  of  commerce  and  industry,  art,  science, 
and  philosophy,  the  general  secularization  of  life,  may  seem  to 
indicate  that  religion  in  the  future  will  exercise  an  ever-diminishing 
influence  on  man.  But  the  interest  which  looms  up  as  without 
comparison  the  strongest  in  the  life  of  modem  man  is  big  with  relig- 


464  HISTORY   OF   RELIGION 

ions  import.  When  millions  of  men  ardently  desire  and  earnestly 
strive  for  a  better  adjustment  of  social  relations,  a  more  equitable 
distribution  of  wealth,  the  abolition  of  war,  the  enfranchisement  of 
woman,  the  prevention  and  cure  of  disease,  universal  education, 
religious  toleration  and  good  will  among  men,  religion  has  nothing 
to  fear.  As  the  Reformation  followed  in  the  wake  of  humanism,  with 
its  emancipation  of  the  mind  and  sympathy  for  classical  antiquity, 
so  the  social  idealism  of  the  present  day,  with  its  larger  ethical  ideals 
and  universal  human  sympathies,  seems  to  prognosticate  a  fresh 
outflowering  of  the  religious  consciousness  into  harmony  with  the 
moral  demands  of  that  infinite  power  which  determines  man's 
destiny. 


SECTION  A  — BRAHMANISM  AND  BUDDHISM 


SECTION  A  — BRAHMANISM  AND  BUDDHISM 


{Hall  8,  September  23,  10  a.  m.) 


Speakers:     Professor  Hermann  Oldenberg,  University  of  Kiel. 

Professor  Maurice  Bloomfield,  Johns  Hopkins  University. 
Secretary:  Dr.  Reginald  C.  Robbins,  Harvard  University. 


THE  RELATIONS  OF  THE  RELIGIONS  OF  ANCIENT  INDIA 
TO   THE  SCIENCE  OF   RELIGION 

BY   HERMANN   OLDENBERG 
{Translated  from  the  German  by  Prof.  E.  W.  Bagster-Collins,  Columbia  University) 

[Hermann  Oldenberg,  Professor  of  Sanskrit  and  Comparative  Grammar,  Univers- 
ity of  Kiel,  Prussia,  b,  1854,  Hamburg,  Germany.  University  of  Berlin,  1871- 
72;  University  of  Gottingen,  1872-74;  University  of  Berlin,  1874-75.  Ph.D. 
University  of  Berlin;  Privat-docent,  University  of  Berlin,  1878-81;  Professor 
extraordinarius,  ibid.  1881-89;  Professor  ordinarius.  University  of  Kiel,  since 
1889.  Member  of  German  Oriental  Society,  Corresponding  Member  of  Society 
of  Sciences,  Gottingen.  Author  of  Buddha  ;  The  Hymns  of  the  Rig-Veda;  The 
Religion  of  the  Veda;  From  India  and  Iran;  The  Ldterature  of  Ancient  India.] 


In  this  paper  I  shall  attempt  to  answer  for  my  own  theme  those 
questions  which  this  Congress  puts  to  the  representatives  of  every 
science.  What  relation  does  the  investigation  of  the  religions  of  an- 
cient India  bear  to  other  allied  branches  of  research  and  to  the 
science  of  religion  as  a  whole? 

Before,  however,  tracing  the  lines  of  connection  that  carry  us 
beyond  the  boundaries  of  our  own  province,  I  dare  not,  self-evident 
as  this  may  seem,  fail  to  mention  the  fact  that  a  large  part  of  our 
scientific  labor  has  to  be  carried  on  within  its  own  domain,  so  to 
speak,  for  itself  alone.  Like  all  historians,  we  investigate  individual 
forms  that  are  never  again  identically  repeated.  At  the  most  they 
are  only  similar.  Our  first  desire  is,  then,  not  to  compare  these 
forms  with  others,  nor  to  subordinate  them  to  general  formulas.  We 
wish,  rather,  to  grasp  their  meaning  truly  and  fully  as  if  they  were 
independent.  Everywhere  in  the  study  of  history  there  is  to-day 
a  mighty  force  that  impels  the  student  to  search  for  the  incom- 
mensurable, the  elemental  in  the  lives  of  nations  as  well  as  of  individ- 
uals. And  perhaps  in  few  fields  of  historical  investigation  is  this 
feature  naturally  so  strongly  accentuated  as  in  our  own.   The  people 


468  BRAHMANISM  AND   BUDDHISM 

of  ancient  India  occupy  a  unique  position  among  the  peoples  of 
antiquity;  the  Indian  spirit  goes  on  willfully  and  obstinately  its 
own  strange  ways.  Is  it  wonderful,  then,  that  there  is  among  Indian 
scholars  a  widespread  desire  not  to  introduce  non-Indian  elements 
in  any  consideration  of  Indian  life  and  thought?  "India  for  the 
Indians!"  Indeed,  we  should  never  really  accustom  ourselves  to  the 
peculiar  modes  of  Indian  thought,  our  sympathy  for  the  Indian  soul 
would  always  lack  depth,  if  we  did  not  understand  how  to  keep 
aloof  all  foreign  issues.  And  how  is  the  historian  to  set  aside  this 
feeling  of  sympathy?  Let  him  remember  the  words  of  Faust, "  my  owti 
self  to  them  extend."  Let  him  live  in  his  imagination  the  glowing 
fantasies  of  the  Indian  religion,  long  for  the  peace  of  Nirvana  with 
the  longing  of  Buddhism.  Let  him  experience  the  tragedy  of  the 
conflict  of  the  two  souls  in  the  breast  of  the  Indian  people,  the  one 
Aryan  and  noble,  the  other  humble  and  wild.  And  if  all  this  seems 
to  take  place  far  away  from  our  own  world,  just  for  this  reason 
our  growing  familiarity  with  regions  so  distant  may  come  to  have 
a  peculiar  charm. 

Are  all  demands  that  we  make  of  our  work  met  in  this  manner? 
Certainly  not.  We  have  restricted  the  field  of  vision  more  than  the 
nature  of  the  case  really  justifies.  We  do  not  regret  it;  it  has  been  an 
advantage.  Now,  however,  something  else  remains  to  be  done.  In 
the  attempt  to  study  deeply  any  one  individual  thing,  we  must  not 
forget  that  it  is  but  one  part  of  an  all-embracing  whole.  It  is  a  part 
that  has  developed  into  very  independent  directions.  It  still  re- 
mains, however,  a  part  of  the  whole.  In  order  to  understand  it  as 
such,  there  is  need  of  the  comparative,  systematic,  and  far-seeing 
kind  of  research  that  finds  lines  of  connection  everywhere.  To  what 
extent  can  such  work  be  mastered  by  one  and  the  same  scholar,  who 
has  become  absorbed  in  the  limited  field?  Must  there  be  a  division 
of  labor?  This  is  a  personal  question  that  concerns  scientists  more 
than  the  science  itself.  Science  merely  commands  that,  no  matter 
by  what  hands,  both  kinds  of  work  shall  be  done. 

II 

•  Gates  leading  abroad  are  not  wanting,  you  see,  in  the  boundary 
walls  of  our  province.  In  order  to  discover  the  roads  leading  out 
from  them,  however,  we  must  first  of  all  call  to  mind  the  dominating 
event  in  the  history  of  ancient  India  that  prescribes  the  directions 
that  many  of  these  roads  shall  take;  namely,  the  migration  of  the 
Aryans  to  India.  These  races,  related  as  their  language  shows, 
to  the  great  European  peoples,  indeed  forming  in  the  distant  past 
one  people  with  them,  came  in  their  long  wanderings  from  the 
northwest.     For  a  long  time  they  sat  at   the  gates  of  India,  in 


RELIGIONS   OF   ANCIENT   INDIA  469 

Iran.  A  part  of  them  remained  there,  —  the  ancestors  of  the  Iranians 
that  later  assembled  about  Zoroaster,  Cyrus,  and  Darius.  Others 
crossed  the  mountains  and  wrested  northern  India  from  the  dark- 
skinned  aborigines. 

These  facts  are  well  known.  We  have  to  gather  from  them, 
however,  for  the  questions  with  which  we  are  concerned,  first  and 
foremost  the  fact  that  the  religious  beliefs  brought  by  these  wan- 
derers into  India  must  have  left  such  a  prehistoric  impress  as  to 
direct  the  Indologist's  attention  beyond  India,  and  as  to  induce 
the  investigator  of  non-Indian  religions  to  include  Indian  conditions 
in  his  researches. 

The  comparative  philologist,  aided  by  eminent  Sanskrit  scholars, 
has  undertaken  the  task  of  reconstructing  the  long  since  lost  lan- 
guage of  the  parent-stock  of  the  Indians,  Iranians,  Greeks,  Italians, 
Celts,  Germans,  Slavs  —  in  a  word,  of  the  Indo-Europeans.  Do  the 
religion  and  mythology  of  India  and  the  corresponding  European 
forms  lend  themselves  to  similar  comparisons?  Taking  India  for 
instance  as  a  starting-point,  can  we  learn  the  nature  of  the  religion  of 
the  Indo-European  period,  and,  if  we  again  go  back  from  the  stand- 
point thus  gained,  can  we  discover  the  origin  of  the  old  Indian  and 
European  religions?  It  is  undoubtedly  justifiable  in  principle  to  ask 
such  questions.  Yet  when  we  speak  of  such  investigations,  it  usually 
means  nothing  more  than  looking  back  upon  illusions  that  are  and 
had  to  be  things  of  the  past.  This  is,  at  least,  my  own  firm  conviction, 
and  it  is  also  shared  by  many  others. 

The  time  is  past  when  the  Vedic  scholar  was  also  the  compar- 
ative mythologist.  Religious  ideas  are  naturally  subjected  to  many 
more  indeterminable  transformations  than  languages.  The  pro- 
cess of  change  from  the  Vedic  gods  to  Apollo  or  Mars  cannot  be  so 
clearly  pictured  as  the  changes,  say,  from  the  Indian  to  the  Greek 
and  Latin  sibilants  or  optative  forms.  Even  that  objective  cer- 
tainty based  upon  ancient  monuments  that  is  shared  by  many  other 
branches  of  comparative  research  dealing  with  antiquity  is  want- 
ing. Moreover,  the  unfavorable  aspect  of  the  whole  problem 
is  bound  up  with  the  question  as  to  the  position  of  the  Indo-Euro- 
pean mother  country.  At  one  time  this  was  thought  to  be  in  Central 
Asia:  the  Indians  did  not  seem  to  be  very  far  distant;  they  could 
in  many  respects  be  regarded  almost  as  the  representatives  of  the 
Indo-Europeans  themselves.  But  we  have  come  to  see  that  that 
earliest  home  was  very  probably  situated  in  Europe.  What  distances 
between  that  home  and  Vedic  India,  what  contact  of  the  wanderers 
with  strange  peoples  of  different  origin,  what  unavoidable,  and 
for  us,  incalculable  race-mixture,  what  changes  in  economic  and 
social  conditions!  Middle  and  North-European,  Germanic  and  Lithu- 
anian data  would,  we  must  now  assume,  teach  us  more  and  surer 


470  BRAHMANISM  AND   BUDDHISM 

facts  than  the  Veda,  provided  we  possessed  similar  data  of  approx- 
imately as  great  antiquity.  Nevertheless  the  comparisons  that 
have  been  drawn  between  India  and  Europe  have  not  been  quite 
without  success.  We  may  even  to-day  regard  it  as  certain  as  well 
as  important  that  the  comparison  of  the  old  Indian  word  deva, 
"god,"  with  the  corresponding  words  of  the  Occident,  and  the  rela- 
tionship of  this  word  with  dyans  (=Zeus),  "the  sky,"  gives  us  the 
right  to  attribute  to  the  Indo-Europeans  the  conception  of  gods 
as  bright  beings,  living  in  the  high  heavens.  On  the  other  hand, 
most  of  the  attempted  comparisons  of  individual  gods,  demons,  and 
myths  are  uncertain,  even  if  not  actually  false.  Do  similarities  of 
sound  in  names  and  faint  similarities  between  forms  really  point 
to  each  other  from  such  a  distance?  Or  do  mere  chance  resemblances 
deceive  us?  They  furnish  results  that  one  may  believe,  if  one  wills, 
but  no  proof  compels  one  to  believe  them.  They  are  results  that  one 
will  dare  least  of  all  make  the  basis  for  further  investigations.  How 
different  the  comparisons  seem  to  us  to-day  that  are  confined  to  the 
religions  of  the  ancient  Indians  and  the  neighboring  closely  related 
Aryans,  the  Iranian  Zoroastrians,  as  against  the  rash  combinations 
that  would  teach  us  to  interpret,  in  the  light  of  the  Veda,  the  whole 
series  of  European  forms  from  the  Olympus  of  Homer  to  German 
folk-lore  and  children's  games!  The  distances  in  time,  space,  and 
race-mixture  necessary  to  be  bridged  over  were  just  as  great  in  the 
latter  case  as  they  a,re  insignificant  in  the  former.  Proportionately 
better  success  must  necessarily  attend  the  less  pretentious  under- 
taking. 

Indeed,  I  dare  assert  that  it  has  become  possible,  by  the  happy 
alliance  between  Indian  and  Iranian  investigation  of  religions,  to 
reconstruct  many  of  the  principal  features  of  the  belief  peculiar  to 
the  ancestors  of  both  peoples  in  their  prehistoric  relationship.  The 
chief  rdle  falls  naturally  here  to  Indian  investigation.  For  the  com- 
mon basis  of  their  belief  is  more  distinctly  evident  in  Indian  tradi- 
tions. The  migration  of  the  Indian  Aryans  to  their  new  land,  the 
beginnings  of  new  race-formations  that  were  gradually  to  transform 
the  Aryan  belief  here  most  deeply,  only  just  began  to  be  felt  even  in 
the  Vedic  period.  The  stronger  creative  forces  left  their  impress  at 
first  upon  the  Zoroastrian  religion,  —  the  thought  and  will  of  a  great 
personality.  Yet  enough  of  the  old  still  remains  also  on  this  side  to 
assure  the  Vedic  scholar,  in  codperation  with  Iranian  scholars,  of 
many  a  valuable  result  for  his  own  purposes.  Above  all,  he  may  rejoice 
in  the  fact  that  he  is  able  to  make  an  important  contribution  here  to 
the  knowledge  of  a  non-Indian  religion.  He  teaches  the  investigator 
of  the  A-vesta  the  background  of  the  old  belief,  from  which  the 
teaching  of  Zoroaster  stands  out  in  bold  relief. 


f  RELIGIONS   OF   ANCIENT  INDIA  471 

III 

We  can  sum  up  the  investigations  thus  far  mentioned  by  saying 
that  students  of  ancient,  related  religions  endeavor  by  their  com- 
parisons to  extend  the  knowledge  of  direct  tradition  backwards 
into  prehistoric  periods.  It  is  of  course  quite  evident  that  a  much 
brighter  light  falls  upon  fields  that  lie  nearer  historic  times  than 
upon  the  more  remote  past.  It  may  accordingly  appear  for  a  mo- 
ment paradoxical  to  speak  of  pressing  back  still  farther,  and  to 
assert  that  the  certainty  of  our  undertaking  not  only  does  not  any 
longer  diminish;  on  the  contrary  it  begins  to  increase.  The  cer- 
tainty increases  because  we  are  dealing  with  those  prehistoric 
periods  when  the  play  of  racial  individualities  has  not  yet  become 
unfathomable,  but  a  kind  of  law  with  which  we  can  reckon,  which 
everywhere  produces  like  forms. 

I  am  now  speaking  of  scientific  movements  that  are  still  in  their 
infancy.  I  am  well  aware  that  many  an  investigator  of  great  authority 
does  not  share  my  conclusions.  I  can  only  voice  my  own  conviction; 
the  future  must  decide  whether  it  be  right  or  not. 

The  young  science  of  ethnology  carries  us  back  to  primitive  forms 
of  religions,  far  beyond  Indo-European  conditions.  From  it  we  learn, 
as  you  know,  that  certain  rudest  types  of  religious  conceptions  and 
practices  are  found  everywhere  among  peoples  of  the  same  low 
level  of  civilization  in  apparently  wonderful  though  undoubted 
agreement.  Religious  research  here  assumes  somewhat  the  attitude 
of  the  natural  science.  What  it  reports  does  not  differ  much  from  a 
chapter  taken  from  the  life  of  animals.  A  further  inference  has  been 
drawn  from  the  above-mentioned  agreement.  It  is  not  less  widely 
known  that  these  very  same  primitive  forms  must  have  been  the 
basis,  likewise,  of  all  higher  forms  of  religion  in  the  distant  past. 
Hence  the  investigation  of  Indian  religions  is  clearly  placed  in  new 
and  very  far-reaching  relations.  If  it  formerly  carried  on  a  coasting- 
trade,  so  to  speak,  it  must  now  venture  out  upon  the  high  seas.  It 
ventures  to  make  comparisons  that  are  no  longer  restricted  to  the 
Indo-European  field.  It  throws  aside  for  a  time  the  tools  of  com- 
parative grammar,  the  time-honored  technique  of  philology,  and  leaps 
over  boundary  lines  usually  set  for  the  routine  work  of  the  science.  In 
order  to  discover  the  greatest  antiquity,  it  studies  the  present.  It 
accompanies  the  journeys  of  the  traveler  among  the  Red  Indians, 
Kaffirs,  Australians,  and  those  less  pretentious  travels  of  discovery 
among  those  classes  of  our  own  people,  where  so  many  primitive 
modes  of  thought  are  found  even  to-day.  It  then  searches  in  its 
own  field  for  the  primitive  religious  forms  that  it  found  there.  We 
find  the  same  impulse  here  as  everywhere  in  historical  science,  and 
also  in  art,  —  to  put  new  life  into  the  old  material  and  the  old 


472  BRAHMANISM  AND   BUDDHISM 

problems,  by  letting  the  light  of  present  day  illumine  the  world  of 
books  and  traditions.  We  are  not  the  first  in  this  field  of  research. 
I  call  to  mind  the  much  lamented  names  of  two  masters.  Erwin 
Rohde  studied  Greek  religious  beliefs,  Robertson  Smith  the  religious 
cult  of  the  Semites.  Our  science  has  also  begun  this  bold  though 
possible  task,  and  we  may  even  now  say  that  results  have  been 
attained;  and  also,  of  course,  an  outlook  upon  new  problems  that 
formerly  were  not  raised,  could  not  be  raised.  For,  if  anywhere,  the 
words, 

To  riddle  after  riddle  we  the  answers  read,  , 

find  the  inevitable  reply, 

To  riddles  new  each  time  the  answers  lead. 

The  elements  of  the  religion  of  ancient  India  that  have  been  brought 
into  the  right  perspective  with  the  aid  of  ethnology,  usually  differ,  as 
one  might  expect,  from  those  with  which  the  comparative  studies 
of  Indo-Germanic  scholars  dealt.  There  is  little  here  about  gods  and 
heroes,  of  rich  poetic  myths.  We  are  dealing  with  the  low,  the  crude, 
and  the  uncouth;  with  kobolds  and  demons,  with  the  worship  of  the 
dead,  with  fetishism  and  magic,  with  the  grotesque,  which,  when 
we  learn  to  understand  it,  ceases  to  be  grotesque.  As  we  find  such 
universal  human  forms  again  in  the  Veda,  some  of  the  barriers  that 
seemed  to  isolate  this  from  the  outer  world  fall  down.  The  stu- 
dent of  the  Veda,  having  taken  up  the  relations  I  have  attempted 
to  describe,  leams  how  a  prehistoric  form  fuses  with  higher  religious 
forms,  envelops  itself  in  them,  transforms  itself  into  them  and 
broadens  itself  out  into  them.  He  leams  to  see  in  the  priest,  the 
medicine-man,  in  many  a  sacrifice,  in  some  old  incantation  for  rain, 
in  the  pious  symbolism  of  burial  customs,  the  pale  terror  of  the  savage 
at  the  treacherous,  avaricious  soul  of  the  dead.  He  resolves  con- 
ceptions and  customs  occurring  side  by  side  in  the  texts  into  a 
sequence  of  the  old  and  the  new,  the  beginnings  of  which  lie  per- 
haps thousands  of  years  apart.  It  is  as  if  we  were  walking  through 
a  city  and  gradually  discovered,  behind  the  at  first  apparently  uni- 
form exterior,  the  mighty  remains  of  a  distant  past,  the  late  addi- 
tions merely  adhering  to  the  old.  If  in  order  to  shed  light  upon 
these  relations,  our  investigations  can  by  chance  make  use  of  mate- 
rials that  lie  infinitely  removed  in  space  and  time  from  our  own  field 
of  research,  who  would  blame  us  for  rejoicing  at  the  bold  indirect- 
ness of  such  an  attempt?  The  Indologist  can  here  no  longer  claim 
for  himself,  as  formerly,  in  comparative  mythology  the  leading  part. 
It  is  not  for  him  to  teach  the  ethnologist,  but  to  learn  from  him, 
concerning  the  appearance  and  significance  of  the  lower  mytholog- 
ical and  religious  forms.    Undoubtedly  he  contributes  his  share  to 


RELIGIONS  OF  ANCIENT  INDIA  473 

the  huge  collection  of  material  with  which  ethnology  must  work, 
and  I  believe  that  that  science  rightly  appreciates  this  fact.  But  on 
the  whole,  he  plays  the  role  of  the  recipient.  For  some  time  to  come 
he  will  make  many  a  blunder  in  sifting  and  working  over  that  which 
he  appropriates  to  himself.  Where  such  distant  vistas  have  been 
opened  up  to  research,  as  in  this  case,  one's  vision  must  necessarily 
often  become  distorted.  This  does  no  harm.  He  is  faint-hearted 
who  does  not  have  faith  that  our  very  mistakes  will  bring  us  nearer 
the  truth. 


IV 

Let  us  now  turn  from  the  prehistoric  relations  which  students  of 
Indian  rehgions  are  engaged  in  interpreting  to  historic  times.  The 
wanderings  of  the  Aryans  have  come  to  an  end.  The  old  tribal  rela- 
tions have  been  broken  up.  Boundaries  have  been  made  that  frus- 
trate every  attempt  to  treat  the  history  of  ancient  India  as  merging 
into  a  general  history  of  antiquity.  Still  such  boundaries  do  not 
exclude  the  existence  of  some  intercourse  at  the  frontier.  Even  over 
greater  distances  there  was  for  centuries,  by  land  and  by  water,  a 
never  wholly  interrupted  intercourse  between  India  and  the  outer 
world.  What  religious  possessions  has  this  intercourse  borne  hither 
and  thither? 

When  one  simply  expresses  such  a  question,  it  suggests  the  varied 
relations  in  which  Indology  must  stand  to  all  allied  branches  of  scien- 
tific inquiry.  No  single  individual  can  grasp  all  this.  It  is  not  the  re- 
sult of  any  undervaluation  of  the  investigations  in  question,  but  only 
the  feeling  of  my  own  insufficiency,  if  I  do  not  call  to  mind  many 
things.  What  problems  does  the  quick  and  brilliant  development  of 
Assyriology  set  for  us?  What  questions  arise  from  the  estimation 
of  the  mighty  influences  of  Brahmanism,  and  particularly  Buddhism 
upon  Central  Asia,  farther  India,  and  China?  I  cannot  trace  these 
tendencies;  I  shall  only  speak  of  a  few  problems  that  deal  with  a  world 
closer  at  hand. 

Both  Indologists  and  students  of  Greek  philosophy  we  find  exam- 
ining the  question  whether  the  teachings  of  Pythagoras  show  traces 
of  Indian  influence,  as  a  daring  and  ably  defended  recent  hypothesis 
maintains,  and  whether,  many  centuries  later,  Indian  sages  and  thau- 
maturgs  likewise  had  a  share  in  the  varied  and  confused  influences 
of  Oriental  mysticism  that  are  found  in  the  writings  of  the  neo-Fla- 
tonists.  In  another  field  there  is  a  problem  that  may  arouse  us  still 
more:  How  can  we  account  for  the  similarities  between  the  narratives 
and  speeches  of  the  four  Gospels  and  those  of  the  Buddhists?  The 
story  of  Jesus  in  the  temple,  the  encomium  of  Simeon — are  they  con- 
structed from  the  story  of  the  wise  old  man  Asita,  who  approaches 


474  BRAHMANISM   AND   BUDDHISM 

the  child  Buddha  and  praises  his  coming  glory?    The  temptation  of 
Jesus  in  the  wilderness  and  the  temptation  of  Buddha  in  solitude  by 
Mara  the  evil  one,  the  walking  of  Peter  on  the  sea,  the  widow's  mite, 
the  parable  of  the  prodigal  son  and  the*  corresponding  Buddhistic 
parallels,  —  what  is  one  to  think  about  all  this?   Have  features  been 
really  added  to  the  picture  of  Christ  by  the  contemplative  imagina- 
tion of  the  disciples  of  Buddha  living  in  the  monks'  abodes  along  the 
Ganges?  Important  as  these  questions  are,  I  naturally  have  no  inten- 
tion of  discussing  them  here.   I  merely  wish  to  describe  how  Indology 
joins  forces  with  other  branches  of  research  in  their  solution.  I  desire 
only  to  emphasize  the  following  point.    When  the  problem  is  to  de- 
termine the  possible  influence  of  an  Indian  prototype  upon  any  non- 
Indian  circle  of  ideas,  Indology  can  never  do  more  than  contribute  to 
forming  the  decision.   The  decision  itself  can  be  reached  only  within 
the  province  covered  by  the  other  science.    The  Indian  scholar  will 
determine  that  the  Indian  prototype  in  question  has  such  and  such 
a  form  and  goes,  or  can  go,  back  to  such  and  such  a  time.  The  fellow 
worker  will  likewise  ascertain   corresponding  facts  regarding  the 
phenomenon  that  may  eventually  be  regarded  as  an  imitation.  When 
these  preliminary  questions  have  bees  settled,  there  then  begins  the 
more  subtile  investigation,  which  in  cases  of  this  kind  does  not  really 
come  within  the  sphere  of  Indology.     Does  the  civilization  which 
is  so  claimed  to  be  influenced,  for  example  the  early  Christian,  pre- 
sent within  itself  the  conditions  by  which  the  phenomena  in  question 
can  be  adequately  explained  without  assuming  derivation?    Does 
the  configuration  of  the  forms  disclose  any  abnormalities,  erosions, 
joints,  fissures,  that  might  give  weight  to  the  opinion  that  foreign 
elements  have  been  mingled  ?   Then  there  still  remains  the  question, 
in  case  such  an  admixture  is  to  be  assumed,  whether  it  must  be 
derived  precisely  from  India.    The  peculiar  trend  of  his  imagination, 
I  might  almost  say  a  kind  of  subconscious  patriotism,  all  too  easily 
drives  the  Indologist  to  this  conclusion.     The  investigator  of  a  par- 
ticular field  possesses  a  vivid  knowledge  of  this  field  alone.  Almost 
inevitably  his  scales  must  tip  in  favor  of  his  own  subject,  when 
different  ones  are  claiming  to  be  the  point  of  departure  of  some 
historical  movement. 

In  these  last  sentences  I  have  touched  upon  a  peculiarity  of  these 
investigations  which  I  must  not  neglect;  namely,  the  subjectivity  of 
the  critic  and  his  scientific  temperament  are  wont  to  play  here  a  par- 
ticularly dangerous  r61e.  We  see  students,  on  the  one  hand,  grasping 
with  ready  faith  at  every  similarity  between  widely  separated  facts 
and  constantly  finding  traces  of  historical  relationships.  The  phlegm- 
atic are  also  not  wanting.  They  are  filled  with  the  greatest  mis- 
trust whenever  they  are  expected  to  risk  a  leap  or  even  a  step  from 
one  sphere  of  civilization  to  another.   The  more  anxiously,  however, 


RELIGIONS  OF  ANCIENT  INDIA  475 

one  tries  to  avoid  one  or  the  other  failing,  the  oftener  one  arrives 
at  a  non  liquet  as  his  final  decision.  The  cases  in  which  objective 
criteria  help  us  out  of  this  uncertainty  are  not  very  frequent,  and 
unfortunately  often  these  prove  to  be  not  really  the  important  ones. 
Thus,  for  example,  I  fear  that  the  question  regarding  the  relations 
between  the  New  Testament  and  Buddhism  belongs  to  those  that 
do  not  admit  of  an  absolute  yes  or  no.  I  myself  can  of  course  not 
speak  here  with  the  authority  of  the  speciaUst.  Only  a  high  authority 
on  the  New  Testament  can  shoulder  the  responsibility  of  deciding 
this  case.  Still,  my  subjective  impression  is  that  nothing  in  the 
four  Gospels  necessarily  points  to  any  real  borrowing  from  India. 
There  is  hardly  more  than  inner  parallelism  with  Buddhism.  A 
prominent  Indologist  said  a  short  time  ago  that  just  as  "Babel" 
now  knocks  noisily  at  the  gates  of  the  Old  Testament,  so  Buddha 
knocks,  gently,  at  the  door  of  the  New  Testament.  Certainly  any 
one  who  examines  the  later  periods  of  early  Christian  literature 
hears  such  knocking  now  and  then.  Even  the  dullest  ear  can  hear 
it  repeated  in  the  medieval  Christian  tale  of  Barlaam  and  Josaphat, 
the  whole  history  of  the  youth  of  the  royal  son  of  the  house  of  Sakya. 
But  Buddha  scarcely  seems  to  me  to  knock  at  the  gates  of  the  New 
Testament. 

The  results  of  the  investigations  are  similar,  when  we  examine 
whether  Christianity,  in  turn,  has  influenced  ancient  Indian  forms  of 
religion,  the  Krishna  religion,  for  example.  When  we  are  dealing 
with  influences  coming  from  the  opposite  direction,  from  west  to 
east,  as  in  this  case,  the  leading  part  falls  to  Indology,  for  the  reasons 
I  have  already  mentioned.  Even  here,  however,  the  outcome,  partially 
at  least,  is  quite  uncertain.  Even  if  the  wonderful  poem  Bhagavad 
Gita  sings  that  the  belief  and  love  of  the  pious  man  look  towards 
the  god  incarnate,  even  if  the  divine  Krishna  says  there,  "Whoever 
loves  me  is  not  lost,"  I  for  one  should  not  like  to  assert  positively 
that  Christian  influences  are  in  evidence.  It  seems  to  me  that  the 
thought  expressed  in  the  Bhagavad  Gita  is  everywhere  in  accord 
with  Indian  thought  in  its  development.  Even  here,  again,  the  later 
texts  show  us  another  picture.  We  find  a  kind  of  Christmas-cult  con- 
secrated to  the  birth  of  the  child  Krishna.  We  come  across  stories  of 
the  new-born  god  incarnate  in  a  stable;  shepherds  and  shepherdesses 
are  gathered  round  the  blessed  mother;  even  "the  ox  and  the  ass" 
are  present.  Such  facts  will,  of  course,  silence  even  great  skepticism. 

Let  us  look  backward.  Can  we  conceal  from  ourselves  the  fact 
that  when  Indology,  together  with  classical  philology,  or  with  New 
Testament  research,  treats  such  problems  of  derivation,  the  results 
are  rather  meagre?  What  does  the  holy  martyr  Josaphat  signify  for 
Christianity,  or  the  idyl  of  the  Krishna  child  for  Hinduism?  It  is 
well  to  record  scrupulously  such  borrowings;  the  amateur  may,  ^^^th 


476  BRAHMANISM  AND   BUDDHISM 

pleasure,  take  in  them  the  interest  of  the  collector  in  a  rare  find. 
The  historian,  however,  who  seeks  for  the  essential  in  things,  will 
surely  not  feel  so  enthusiastic.  Even  if  any  of  the  New  Testament 
narratives  should  really  show  evidences  of  Buddhistic  influence, 
although  I  doubt  it  very  much  personally,  the  picture  of  Christianity 
would  probably  not  be  afifected  in  the  very  slightest  degree.  We 
are  aware  that  there  was  great  mingling  of  religious  elements  of 
most  varied  origin  in  the  last  centuries  before  and  the  first  cen- 
turies after  Christ,  —  Grecian,  Egyptian,  Jewish,  Babylonian,  and 
Persian.  India  was  not  separated  from  these  movements  by  impass- 
able barriers;  still  it  was  so  remote  that  it  could  have  had  only  a 
minor  share  in  them. 


We  have  now  reviewed  all  the  prehistoric  as  well  as  historic 
relations.  Have  we,  however,  really  exhausted  thereby  all  that  the 
study  of  Indian  religions  has  to  offer  to  the  whole  science?  We  have 
found  the  results  obtained  with  regard  to  the  belief  of  the  Indo- 
Europeans  both  few  and  unsafe,  the  extent  of  the  Indo-Iranian 
relationship  narrowly  restricted.  We  have  found  ethnology  more 
often  our  creditor  than  our  debtor.  Furthermore,  the  remoteness  of 
the  civilizations  of  Central  Asia  and  the  farthest  East  that  were 
influenced  by  India  and  the  insignificance  of  the  religious  exchange 
with  the  West,  —  does  all  this  form  an  adequate  basis  for  determining 
the  importance  that  the  study  of  the  religions  of  India  has  for  under- 
standing the  world  in  which  we  live  ?  Certainly  not.  Whether  the 
study  of  Buddhism,  for  example,  possesses  a  universal  significance 
over  and  above  its  own  special  one,  cannot  depend  upon  whether 
a  few  stories  from  the  great  wealth  of  Buddhistic  legends  may  have 
found  their  way  into  Christian  literature.  We  are  not  dealing  here 
with  mere  chance,  external  correspondences,  but  with  inner  relations. 

Here  and  there  we  find  analogous  and  yet  different  forces  working 
on  a  similar  yet  different  soil.  These  produce  analogous  yet  different 
forms.  We  shall  certainly  refrain  from  speaking  as  if  a  fixed  law,  in 
the  full  sense  of  the  term,  were  conceivable,  or  as  if  history  were 
simply  a  collection  of  forms  that  naturally  fit  into  a  symmetrical 
system  already  discovered  or  yet  to  be  discovered.  Nevertheless 
the  substantial  identity  that  I  have  already  mentioned,  that  we 
find  in  the  lowest  forms  of  civilization  of  which  ethnology  teaches, 
can  certainly  not  be  absolutely  lost  in  the  higher  phases  of  history,  in 
such  differentiations  as  progress  produces  among  the  more  highly 
organized,  less  inert  forms.  The  identity  of  the  former  case  becomes 
here  a  certain  though  often  very  limited  parallelism.  Parallelism, 
however,  means  neither  more  nor  less  than  law  and  order.     And 


RELIGIONS   OF  ANCIENT  INDIA  477 

indeed  we  may  say  that,  for  many  stages  of  the  way  across  the  vast 
historical  tracts,  even  now  a  gleam  of  law  and  order  rewards  the 
patient  observation  of  the  scientist  and  the  intuition  of  the  genius. 
It  is  an  order  whose  constant  fusion  with  its  opposite,  with  what  is 
plainly  mere  chance  and  inexplicable,  is  one  of  the  leading  char- 
acteristics of  historical  development. 

The  comparative  study  of  languages  and  literatures,  of  judicial 
and  social  life,  proves  that  it  is  possible  to  find  many  a  trace  of  law 
and  order.  Why  should  it  not  prove  to  be  equally  true  of  the  history 
of  religions?  Like  helps  to  understand  like  from  east  to  west.  It 
aids  in  recognizing  the  hidden  traces,  in  reconstructing  the  fragments, 
just  as  it  is  possible  for  a  reader  who  is  acquainted  with  a  large 
number  of  careers  and  mental  developments  to  construct  a  whole 
life  from  fragmentary  biographical  data.  Such  comparisons  likewise 
help  us  particularly  to  discover  the  principal  active  causes  behind 
the  facts  themselves.  The  similarities  as  well  as  the  dissimilar- 
ities are  helpful.  Our  view  broadens  so  as  to  include  the  whole 
wealth  of  possibilities.  The  single  fact  takes  its  rightful  place  by 
showing  itself  to  be  one  variety  among  others.  We  learn  to  raise 
the  question,  even  solve  it,  perhaps,  as  to  what  causes  have  given  each 
fact  its  peculiar  characteristics. 

Whoever  pursues  such  problems  will  find  Indian  traditions  espe- 
cially valuable  for  much  that  is  included  under  the  head  of  religious 
thought  and  life.  They  are  wonderfully  preserved  in  true  Indian 
vastness.  It  is  a  primeval  forest  through  which,  however,  the  stead- 
fast zeal  of  the  philologian  has  succeeded  in  making  paths.  The 
oldest  traditions  go  back  to  a  very  remote  past;  they  appear  scarcely 
younger  than  the  Indian  people  themselves.  Moreover,  tradition, 
ever  communicative  and  frank,  helps  us  to  trace  the  long  development 
through  thousands  and  thousands  of  years.  We  believe  we  see  in 
the  texts  before  our  eyes  how  their  conception  of  nature  and  the 
world,  reflected  in  their  religion,  develops  step  by  step.  We  see  how 
the  art  of  presenting  problems  which  creates  this  knowledge,  how 
the  direct  or  the  indirect  relation  of  the  knower  to  his  knowledge 
passes  through  one  phase  after  another.  Above  all  we  hear  what 
needs,  hopes,  and  longings  are  expressed  one  after  another  in  rational 
order.  Particularly  the  older  stadia  of  this  development  lie  wonder- 
fully clear  before  us;  namely,  the  progress  from  the  half-naive,  half- 
artful  religious  cult  of  the  Veda  to  the  deep  speculations  of  the 
Upanishads,  then  to  the  religion  of  salvation  of  the  Buddha.  This 
process,  hardly  influenced  at  all  from  without,  has  been  able  to  go  on 
according  to  its  inherent  law.  Why  should  it  not  help  us  to  under- 
stand the  parallel  developments  in  the  West  in  the  sense  that  I  have 
designated?  The  student  learns  at  every  step,  I  may  say,  that  this 
is  npt  a  deceptive  hope.    For  instance,  let  us  consider  the  sacrifice, 


478  BRAHMANISM  AND   BUDDHISM 

an  historical  problem  broad  in  scope.  What  forces,  what  thoughts 
have  been  set  in  motion  here  during  these  thousands  of  years !  The 
forms,  however,  in  which  the  sacrifice  appears  are  at  first  incompre- 
hensible hieroglyphics;  our  task  is  to  decipher  them  Nowhere  do 
we  find  such  exhaustive  details  regarding  the  sacrifice  as  in  ancient 
India,  especially  the  period  of  its  richest  maturity,  to  which  it  had 
been  brought  by  the  long  labors  of  the  priestly  caste.  How  much 
more  clearly  we  see  the  Vedic  Brahman  exercising  his  office  than  the 
Roman  Flamen,  for  instance!  Accordingly,  I  think,  and  the  results 
already  obtained  bear  me  out,  that  any  one  who  desires  to  recon- 
struct and  interpret  the  remains  of  Western  sacrificial  rites  and 
ceremonies  must  get  his  inspiration  above  all  from  India.  Indian 
tradition  is  just  as  instructive,  if  one  attempts  to  get  a  glimpse  of 
how  those  tendencies  that  incline  toward  uniting  religion  and  morals 
forced  their  way  into  the  old  mass  of  religious  ideas,  that  were 
rather  indifferent  to  moral  ideals.  It  would  be  an  endless  task,  how- 
ever, to  indicate  all  similar  problems.  We  should  meet  with  the  same 
experience  in  every  case;  namely,  that  the  Vedic  religion,  both  by 
virtue  of  its  historic  position  and  its  magnificent  state  of  preserva- 
tion, offers  unparalleled  opportunities  for  study  to  any  one  who 
desires  to  penetrate  to  the  heart,  to  the  very  foundations  of  those 
old  religions,  religions  with  an  old  and  crude  basis,  with  the  crea- 
tions of  riper  thought  and  feeling  above,  and  finally,  we  may  add, 
with  the  seeds  just  visible  of  a  still  riper,  more  perfect  future 
growth, 

I  should  like  to  illustrate  still  further  the  importance  of  the 
Indian  religions  for  the  general  problems  of  the  science  of  religion 
by  mentioning  one  form  that  appears  later  than  the  Vedic  period. 
Buddhism  represents  to  us  one  of  the  highest  forms  of  religion. 
Buddhism  and  Christianity  have  long  since  seemed  to  be  comparable 
to  the  mind  that  seeks  to  bring  harmony  into  the  bewildering  relig- 
ious phenomena.  They  are  the  most  powerful  religions  of  the  East 
and  West.  Both  are  world-religions  having  no  national  boundaries. 
Both  are  religions  teaching  salvation,  breaking  all  restrictions  set 
by  ceremony  or  law.  The  same  type  of  religion  of  salvation  —  thus 
the  relation  has  been  formulated  —  has  been  realized  twice  in  the 
history  of  the  world,  in  the  West  by  Christianity,  and  in  the  East 
by  Buddhism, 

It  is  quite  evident  how  great  the  interests  of  the  science  of  relig- 
ion are  in  a  discussion  of  this  scheme.  The  student  of  Buddhism 
will,  however,  appreciate  the  fact  that  he  and  his  fellow  worker  in  the 
New  Testament  will  not  of  themselves  be  able  to  make  such  a  dis- 
cussion possible,  A  third  must  help,  —  the  student  of  Greek  thought. 
It  is  known  how  nearly  related  to  Buddhism  are  the  ideas  that 
flourished  in  certain  old  Grecian  religious  orders  and  schools  of 


RELIGIONS  OF  ANCIENT  INDIA  479 

philosophy,  and  are  even  found  here  and  there  in  Plato.  Comparison 
with  Buddhism  offers  the  best  means  of  approaching  and  under- 
standing these  ideas.  The  earthly  existence  seems  to  these  Greeks, 
as  to  Buddhists,  to  be  shrouded  in  darkness.  The  soul  has  fallen 
from  its  true  home  into  "hfe  without  life,"  into  an  impermanent 
world.  As  in  Buddhism,  suffering  lasts  indefinitely  in  the  wander- 
ings of  the  soul,  in  which  it  "exchanges  life's  painful  paths  one  for 
another."  But  hke  Buddha  the  wise  man  recognizes  and  points  out 
the  "way  to  salvation."  He  teaches  the  art  of  freeing  one's  self 
from  bodily  existence.  Knowledge  and  philosophy  lead  the  spirit 
to  the  bliss  that  Plato  extols.  In  a  sudden  vision  the  eternal  one, 
that  ever  is,  beams  upon  him,  and  into  union  with  him  he  enters 
freed  of  all  fetters,  just  as  the  blessed  certainty  of  Nirvana  illumined 
the  son  of  Sakya  in  the  holy  night:  "Destroyed  is  the  rebirth, 
fulfilled  the  holy  change  and  duty  done;  I  shall  not  return  to  the 
world  again." 

The  national  differences  between  the  two  peoples  are  of  course 
clearly  seen  when  one  more  closely  examines  these  ideas.  How 
could  it  be  otherwise?  Yet  after  all,  the  harmony  is  wonderful 
wdth  which  the  voices  of  the  Greek  thinkers  answer  the  yellow-robed 
Indian  monks.  It  reminds  one  almost  of  those  correspondences  that 
we  saw  ethnology  finds  between  the  ideas  of  peoples  most  widely 
separated.  There  lies  the  same  haze  of  vague  forebodings  over  both 
these  ideal  worlds,  the  Grecian  as  well  as  the  Indian.  There  is  the 
same  longing  for  the  cessation  of  motion,  of  becoming  and  change. 
With  it  sounds  of  triumph  are  mingled :  the  proud  consciousness  of 
one's  own  power  to  call  a  halt  to  that  motion.  And  this  implies  that 
we  must  never  oppose  to  one  another  these  moods  as  peculiarly 
Indian  or  Christian.  They  are  certainly  not  Indian  alone.  Allied 
Indian  and  Grecian  research  teaches  that  they  are  the  products  of 
forces  that  do  not  belong  to  simply  one  country.  Accordingly  the 
necessary  basis  has  now  been  given  the  science  of  religion  for  investi- 
gating these  forces;  namely,  how  far  do  they  agree  with,  and  how 
far  do  they  differ  from,  those  which  have  produced  Christianity? 

Perhaps  the  differences  will  first  strike  the  eye.  On  the  one  hand, 
in  India  and  Greece,  we  have  the  wise  man  who,  through  his  know- 
ledge of  the  nature  of  the  world  and  the  workings  of  the  universal 
law,  rises  above  the  suffering  that  it  brings  him;  on  the  other  hand, 
in  Christianity,  the  pious  man  who,  though  poor  in  spirit,  clings  to  the 
mercy  of  the  all-loving  God  with  childlike  confidence.  On  the  one 
hand,  the  final  goal  as  conceived  by  a  mind  accustomed  to  meta- 
physical abstractions,  as  rest  freed  from  all  "becoming"  in  the 
realms  of  "  ideas  "  or  those  places 

Where  there  is  no  being,  nothing  firm,  in  the  isle,  the  only  — 


480  BRAHMANISM  AND   BUDDHISM 

of  Nirvana.  On  the  other  hand,  the  blessed  hope  of  spirits  longing 
for  life,  the  transfiguration  of  a  most  living,  most  personal  existence 
perfecting  itself  in  God.  We  have  here  the  sharp  antitheses  that 
appear  doubly  sharp  compared  with  the  harmony  between  Indian 
and  Greek  modes  of  thought.  Who  would  wish  to  obscure  them? 
But  it  is  not  obscuring  them  when  we  ask  whether,  in  spite  of  differ- 
ences of  race,  civilization,  temperament,  powers  of  imagination,  com- 
plexity or  simplicity  of  thought,  it  is  not  after  all  the  same  longing, 
here  as  there,  a  longing  originating  in  the  depths  of  the  soul  for  the 
world  beyond.  It  is  a  longing  for  the  "  far  off, "  to  leave  the  dullness 
of  the  world  and  life  of  the  senses  for  the  freest,  brightest  heights. 
The  hand  that  was  once  eagerly  and  rudely  stretched  out  after 
worldly  goods  has  been  drawn  back.  One  dreams  of  the  inex- 
pressible, whose  secrets  one  must  perforce  call  by  many  ever  chang- 
ing names.  It  sounds  in  the  souls  like  grand  chords  of  stirring  and 
solemn  music. 

I  can  merely  indicate  what  pictures  the  science  of  religion  has  to 
draw  here.  The  assistance  of  students  of  Indian  religions  is  not  cer- 
tainly the  least  to  give  it  the  power  to  reduce  these  pictures  from 
floating  mists  to  definite  form.  We  accompany  that  science  to  its 
very  heights.  We  furnish  it  with  material,  with  facts  that  shall 
prevent  it  from  merely  playing  with  airy  forms.  Moreover,  whatever 
we  have  given  it  returns  to  us  again  open  to  a  higher,  broader,  and 
freer  understanding.  I  said  at  the  beginning  of  my  discussion  that 
each  historical  form  is  itself  alone,  occurs  only  once.  Now  we  think 
we  see  reflected  in  this  one  form  other  forms,  scattered  over  wide 
stretches  of  space  and  time.  The  single  form  remains  constant,  and 
yet  it  may  appear  to  us  as  if  it  first  received  its  fullest  significance, 
its  position  in  all  life,  through  this  reflection. 

Have  I  strayed  too  far,  in  what  I  have  said,  from  the  question  of 
the  relation  of  the  different  branches  of  investigation,  into  a  dis- 
cussion of  the  relationships  of  the  objects  of  these  investigations? 
It  will  hardly  be  possible  to  deal  with  the  first  problem  objectively 
without  constantly  introducing  the  second.  My  real  aim,  however, 
was  always  this,  to  show  how  our  study  is  closely  associated  with 
that  of  our  fellow  scientists,  with  the  work  of  specialists,  and  with  the 
study  of  broad  and  universal  problems.  If  it  were  conceivable  that 
our  share  in  all  this  were  suddenly  made  void,  surely  many  a  gap 
would  be  bitterly  felt.  The  science  of  religions  would  be  more  limited 
and  poorer  if,  among  the  voices  of  the  peoples  that  it  hears  and 
interprets,  the  voice  of  that  people  were  missing  which  created  the 
prayers  and  sacrifices  of  the  Veda  and  the  figure  of  the  Buddha 
shrouded  in  mystery. 


BRAHMANICAL   RIDDLES   AND   THE   ORIGIN   OF 
THEOSOPHY 

BY   MAURICE   BLOOMFIELD 

[Maurice  Bloomfield,  Professor  of  Sanskrit  and  Comparative  Philology,  Johns 
Hopkms  University,  b.  Bielitz,  Austria,  February  23,  1855.  A.M.  Furman  Uni- 
versity, South  Carolina,  1877;  Ph.D.  Johns  Hopkins  University,  1879:  LL.D. 
Pnnceton  University,  1896.  Member  of  the  German  Oriental  Society,  Ameri- 
can Oriental  Society,  American  Philological  Association;  Honorary  Member  of 
American  Philosophical  Society,  Royal  Bohemian  Society,  Prague.  Author  of 
Th^  Atharva-Veda  and  the  Gopatha-Brahmana;  Cerberus,  the  Dog  of  Hades. 
Edited  for  first  time  from  the  original  MSS.  Sutra  of  Kaugika.  Translated  the 
Atharva-Veda  in  the  Sacred  Books  of  the  East  (edited  by  Max  Miiller).  Edited, 
with  Professor  Richard  Garbe,  of  University  of  Tubingen,  the  Kashmirian,  or 
Paippalada-Veda.   Has  in  press,  A  Concordance  of  the  entire  Vedic  Literature.] 

From  olden  times,  as  an  early  exercise  of  the  primitive  mind  in  its 
adjustment  to  the  world  about  it,  comes  the  riddle  or  the  charade. 
The  fresher  the  vision,  when  the  world  was  young,  so  much  keener 
was  the  interest  in  the  phenomena  of  nature,  in  the  phenomena 
of  life,  and  in  the  simple  institutions  which  surrounded  man.  All 
harmonies  and  j&tnesses,  all  discrepancies  and  inconsistencies  attract 
the  notice  of  children  and  the  childlike  man.  Hence  children  love 
riddles;  hence  savage  or  primitive  peoples  put  them.  All  folk-lore 
is  full  of  them.  They  are  the  mystery  and  at  the  same  time  the 
rationalism  of  the  juvenile  mind.  As  civilization  advances  they  still 
sustain  life,  but  they  grow  more  complicated,  more  conscious  and 
exacting,  as  the  simpler  relations  become  commonplace,  and  interest 
in  them  fades  and  wears  off.  Finally  the  riddle  and  the  charade 
remain  only  in  games  and  occasional  plays  on  words.  Humor  and 
fun  have  taken  the  place  of  the  shallow  mystery  which  is  now  gone 
forever. 

Mythology  and  religion  are  largely  attempts  to  account  for  out- 
ward nature,  and  to.  adjust  the  inner  self  to  outward  nature:  we 
may  say  confidently  that  the  riddle-question  and  the  riddle-answer 
could  not  fail  to  come  out  in  these  attempts.  We  may  trust  in  this, 
as  in  many  related  matters,  to  the  Vedic  poets.  Their  intense  pre- 
occupation with  nature  myth,  with  liturgy  and  with  the  psycho- 
physical qualities  of  man,  is  expressed  to  some  extent  in  riddle  form: 
the  Veda  is  the  home  of  the  mythological,  Uturgical,  and  philosoph- 
ical charade.  And  what  is  particularly  interesting  and  quite  puzzling, 
there  are  also  riddles  about  ordinary  things  which  descend  to  the 
level  of  the  nursery  and  the  bar-room. 

It  is  one  thing  to  know  that  riddles  are  ever  near  and  dear  to  the 
heart  of  the  people;  it  is  another  to  account  directly  for  the  impulse 
which  originated  them  or  preserved  them  in  a  religious  literature 


482  BRAHMANISM  AND   BUDDHISM 

of  a  type  as  advanced  as  the  Vedic  hymns.  How  and  why  were  they 
produced  or  preserved?  There  must  have  been  some  peg  to  hang 
them  on. 

The  Veda  is  in  no  sense  a  belles-lettres  collection.  All  its  books  are 
in  some  sense  religious;  they  are  for  the  most  part,  in  fact,  liturgic. 
All  early  Brahmanical  literary  remains,  no  matter  under  what 
impulse  they  were  originally  composed,  were  preserved  for  some 
useful  purpose.  The  Hindus  of  the  time  of  the  Veda,  if  we  judge  them 
by  their  writings,  were  a  practical  people,  in  spite  of  the  speculative 
turn  of  their  minds.  Their  literature  of  a  hundred  works  or  more, 
the  famous  Upanishads  not  excepted,  has  in  view  personal  advantage, 
the  favor  of  the  gods,  the  grant  of  wishes,  or  the  destruction  of 
enemies.  The  same  motive,  after  all,  pervades  also  the  theosophic, 
pessimistic  Upanishads :  they  also  pander  to  a  desire  —  the  desire  to 
escape  the  eternal  round  of  existences.  Whatever  is  left  of  the  litera- 
ture of  early  Brahmanism  was  saved  because  it  had  managed  to 
obtain  a  work  on  some  definite  occasion,  because  it  was  primarily 
composed  for  a  religious  purpose,  or  secondarily  adapted  to  such  a 
purpose.   It  is  not  otherwise  as  regards  the  riddle. 

The  Vedic  word  for  riddle  is  hrahmodya,  or  hrahmavadya,  that  is, 
analysis  of,  or  speculation  about  the  brahma,  or  religion.  The  great 
sacrifices,  the  so-called  frawfa-sacrifices,  such  as  rdjasuya  (coronation 
of  a  king),  or  agvamedha  (horse-sacrifice),  were  for  the  most  part 
undertaken  by  kings  and  rich  nobles,  not  by  the  smaller  house- 
holder who  could  not  afford  them,  or  had  no  occasion  for  them. 
They  had  in  them  the  elements  of  tribal  or  national  festivals.  Of 
course  they  were  expensive.  A  large  number  of  priests  had  to  be 
present,  and  they  were  not  at  all  shy  about  asking  fees  (dakshina)  for 
their  services.  A  sly  way  they  had  of  making  these  fees  exorbitant; 
namely,  they  recited  poems  in  praise  of  generous  givers  of  old, 
so-called  ddnastutis,  "gift-praises,"  and  gdthd  ndrdganisyah,  "stanzas 
which  sing  the  praises  of  generous  men."  In  most  of  these  simply 
fabulous  stories  of  presents  to  the  Brahmans  are  recorded.  They 
sing  these  songs  so  loudly  that  the  Vedic  texts  in  their  soberer  moments 
stamp  them  as  lies  (anrtam),  and  decry  them  as  pollution  (gamalam). 
Once  the  reciter  of  gift-praises  and  the  man  drunk  with  brandy 
(surd)  are  placed  on  the  same  plane;  they  are  so  foul  that  gifts 
from  them  must  not  be  accepted.  Now  we  are  told  distinctly  that 
the  Vedic  kings,  or  tribal  Rajas,  were  not  only  interested  in  the 
mechanical  perfection  and  success  of  the  sacrifices  undertaken  under 
their  patronage,  but  that  they  were  even  more  impressed  by  the 
speculative,  mystic,  and  philosophic  thoughts  which  were  suggested 
by  various  phases  of  the  sacrifice.  In  later  Upanishad  times  the 
kings  appear  as  the  questioners  of  the  great  Brahmans  who  solve 
for  them  the  riddle  of  existence.    Whenever  their  questions  are  an- 


THE  ORIGIN  OF   THEOSOPHY  483 

swered  satisfactorily,  in  the  midst  of  a  continuous  discourse,  the  king 
again  and  again  is  excited  to  generosity:  "I  give  thee  a  thousand 
(cows),"  says  King  Janaka  of  Videha  repeatedly  to  the  great  Vedantic 
Brahman  Yajfiavalkya,  as  the  latter  unfolds  his  marvelous  scheme 
of  salvation  in  the  "  Great  Forest  Upanishad."  Kings  were  known  to 
give  away  their  kingdoms  on  such  occasions;  and  kings  became 
themselves  glorious  expounders  of  theosophic  religion. 

Thus  the  Brahmans  who  must  impress  the  "  generous  giver  "  with 
their  theological  profundity  —  sometimes  the  hollowest  mock 
profundity  —  used  the  riddle-form,  inherited  from  ancient  folk-lore, 
to  enliven  the  mechanical  and  technical  progress  of  the  sacrifice  by 
impressive  intellectual  pyrotechnics.  One  Brahman  puts  the  riddle; 
the  other  answers  it.  It  is  a  theological  "quiz,"  arranged  by  the 
parties:  questioner  and  responder  know  their  parts  to  perfection. 

At  the  horse-sacrifice  two  priests  ask  and  answer :  "  Who  verily 
moveth  quite  alone;  who  verily  is  bom  again  (and  again);  what, 
forsooth,  is  the  remedy  for  cold;  and  what  is  the  great  (greatest) 
heap?"  The  answer:  "The  sun  moveth  quite  alone;  the  moon  is 
born  again  (and  again);  Agni  (fire)  is  the  remedy  for  cold;  the 
earth  is  the  great  (greatest)  heap."  (Vajasaneyi  Samhita,  23, 9  and  10.) 

"I  ask  thee  for  the  highest  summit  of  the  earth;  I  ask  thee  for 
the  navel  of  the  universe;  I  ask  thee  for  the  seed  of  the  lusty  steed; 
I  ask  thee  for  the  highest  heaven  of  Speech  (Vak),"  The  answer  is: 
"This  altar  is  the  highest  summit  of  the  earth;  this  sacrifice  is  the 
navel  of  the  universe;  this  soma  (the  intoxicating  sacrificial  drink) 
is  the  seed  of  the  lusty  steed ;  this  Brahman  priest  is  the  highest  heaven 
(that  is  to  say,  the  highest  exponent)  of  Speech."  (Ibid.  23, 6rand  62.) 

The  priest  called  Hotar  asks  the  priest  called  Adhvarjoi:  "What, 
forsooth,  is  the  sun-like  light;  what  sea  is  there  like  unto  the  ocean; 
what,  verily,  is  higher  than  the  earth;  what  is  the  thing  whose  meas- 
ure is  not  known?"  The  Adhvaryu  priest  answers:  "Brahma  is 
the  sun-like  light ;^  heaven  is  the  sea  like  unto  the  ocean;  Indra  is 
higher  than  the  earth;  the  measure  of  the  cow  is  (quite)  unknown." 
(Ibid.  23,  47  and  48.) 

The  Brahman  priest  asks  the  Udgatar  priest :  "  How  many  are  the 
sacrificial  substances,  and  how  many  are  the  syllables;  how  numerous 
the  oblations  and  the  fagots;  the  categories  of  the  sacrifice  let  me 
ask  you;  how  many  Hotar  priests  sacrifice  in  season?  "  The  Udgatar 
priest  answers :  "  Six  are  the  substances  of  the  sacrifice,  and  hundred 
are  the  syllables;  eighty  the  oblations,  and  three  the  fagots;  the 
categories  of  the  sacrifice  I  do  tell  thee;  seven  Hotar  priests  do 
sacrifice  in  season."    (Ibid.  23,  57  and  58.) 

And  now  by  previous  arrangement  a  mutual  admiration  riddle; 
it  is  an  undisguised  oratio  pro  domo  in  which  the  Brahman  priest,  or 
'  Byron,  Siege  of  Corinth,  xi. 


484  BRAHMANISM  AND   BUDDHISM 

High  priest,  and  through  him  the  entire  priesthood,  is  extolled  in 
terms  of  frank  selfishness.  The  Udgatar  priest  asks  the  Brahman, 
the  highest  priest  at  the  sacrifice,  the  following  leading  questions: 
"Who  knows  the  navel  of  this  universe;  who  heaven,  and  earth, 
and  atmosphere;  who  knows  the  birthplace  of  the  lofty  sun;  knows, 
too,  the  moon,  whencesoever  born?"  The  Brahman  priest  answers: 
"I  know  the  navel  of  this  universe;  I,  heaven  and  earth  and  atmo- 
sphere; I  know  the  birthplace  of  the  lofty  sun;  know,  too,  the  moon, 
whencesoever  born."    (Ibid.  23,  59  and  60.) 

We  see  the  whole  stuff  of  religions:  nature  myth,  liturgy,  human 
psychology,  theosophy;  they  all  present  themselves  as  mystery  fit 
for  the  riddle,  and  they  are  handled  often  in  a  very  fresh  and  original 
way;  perhaps  yet  more  often  with  labored  obscurity,  with  mock 
profundity,  designed  to  swell  the  importance  of  the  too  simple 
thought.  But  what  is  most  remarkable,  the  same  ritualistic  texts 
that  have  preserved  the  divine  riddle  have  also  preserved  the,  so  to 
speak,  human  riddle  —  very  human  indeed  in  its  choice  of  the  most 
ordinary  objects,  in  its  shallow  didacticism,  in  its  lumbering  humor, 
and  in  its  naive  grossness.  Especially  in  the  so-called  /cwn^pa-hymns 
of  the  Atharva-Veda,  a  curious  medley  of  gift-praises,  didactic 
stanzas,  riddles,  and  obscenities,  all  of  which  are  firmly  imbedded 
in  the  liturgy,  the  homely  riddle  appears,  at  the  first  blush,  like  the 
cry  of  a  baby  in  arms  in  a  serious  assembly.  What  shall  we  say  of 
religious  texts  that  break  out  in  the  nursery-charade?  Once  it  is 
said  that  the  gods  propounded  these  charades  d,  la  sphinx  to  the 
Asuras,  or  devils,  and  so  got  the  better  of  them:  "In  that  which 
lies  stretched  out  there  is  hidden  that  which  stands:  (what  is  it?) " 
Answer:  "The  foot  in  the  shoe." 

"  By  drawing  two  little  ears  to  one's  self  they  are  gotten  out  in  the 
middle :  (what  is  it?)  "    The  tying  of  a  knot  in  a  rope. 

"Well,  here  it  is,  east,  west,  north,  and  south;  as  soon  as  you 
touch  it,  it  melts  away :  (what  is  it?)"    Answer:  "  A  drop  (of  rain) . " 

Then  three  riddles  from  the  animal  and  vegetable  kingdoms, 
typifying  the  actions  of  quick  arrival,  swift  disappearance,  and  firm 
standing,  or  permanence.  The  thing  is  at  once  subtle  and  simple: 
"Bounce!  he  has  come:  (what  is  it?)"  Answer:  "The  dog." 
"  Whish!  it  is  gone:  (what  is  it?)  "  Answer:  "The  fall  of  a  leaf." 
"Bang!  it  has  trodden :  (what  is  it?)  "  Answer:  "The hoof  of  an  ox." 

The  decencies  of  present-day  literature  forbid  the  report  of  that 
very  characteristic  class  of  riddles  which  deal  with  human  nature 
in  the  narrow  sense,  and  with  the  sexual  relation  (Atharva-Veda, 
20,  133),  but  it  is  well  to  bear  their  existence  in  mind  when  looking 
for  an  explanation.  The  theme,  of  course,  primarily  suggests  popular 
origin.  Yet  its  presence  in  the  liturgy  is  taken  with  the  utmost  seri- 
ousness by  the  ritualists;   they  explain  and  apologize  for  its  foolish 


THE  ORIGIN  OF   THEOSOPHY  485 

and  obscene  character.  The  entire  material  has  the  look  of  a  fossil:  it 
is  something  which  must  have  stood  in  a  prehistoric  period  outside 
of  the  sacrifice,  being  connected  with  it  at  first  by  looser,  more 
accidental  ties,  until  the  rigid  formalism  of  which  the  existing  texts 
are  the  final  expression  had  placed  everything  upon  the  same  footing 
of  sanctity.  The  nursery-charade,  and  worse,  cannot  reasonably  be 
supposed  to  have  found  its  way  into  the  ritual  in  any  other  way. 
This  is  true  in  spite  of  the  scientific  seriousness  of  the  Hindu  mind 
and  its  naive  love  of  schematizing,  which  makes  it  possible  in  later 
times  for  the  ars  amandi  (kamagastra)  to  treat  the  most  incredible 
things  in  scientific  sutra  style  —  the  style,  for  instance,  of  the  sutras  of 
the  Vedanta  and  Sankhya  philosophies,  or  the  grammatical  rules 
of  Panini.  This  material  was  obviously  popular  at  first,  and  I  have 
little  doubt  as  to  the  reason  of  its  presence  in  the  sacred  texts.  It 
generally  occurs  in  close  neighborhood  to  the  festive  "gift-praises," 
which,  as  stated  above,  were  not  only  intended  to  stimulate  future 
givers,  but  also  mark  the  note  of  hilarity.  No  doubt  these  served  as 
a  bridge  from  the  real  solemnities  of  the  sacrifice  to  what,  for  lack 
of  a  better  term,  we  might  call  —  borrowing  a  German  student  term 

—  a  kind  of  a  liturgic  "saukneipe."  Plainly  speaking,  the  bestowal 
of  the  sacrificial  fees  (dakshind)  in  many  cases  must  have  led  to 
gormandizing  and  drunkenness,  and  these  were  probably  in  turn 
followed  —  the  practice  is  not  entirely  unknown  at  the  present  day 

—  by  shallow  witticisms  of  this  sort.  This  we  must  not  imagine  to 
have  taken  place  without  interruption,  without  recollection  of  the 
religious  character  of  the  occasion  as  a  whole,  because  theosophic 
and  cosmic  riddles  and  discussions  come  in  too.  In  the  main,  however, 
social  jollification  was  the  original  motive,  until,  in  the  course  of 
the  ossification  of  the  ritual,,  even  the  most  trivial  moments  march 
by  in  the  procession  of  the  sacrifice,  misunderstood  and  suspected, 
yet  respected.  They  are  now  as  sacred  and  ineradicable  as  the  most 
thoughtful  prayer  to  the  gods.  But  a  modern  Vedantist,  the  late 
Svami  Vivekananda,  found  it  in  his  heart  to  speak  of  "those  dis- 
gusting Vedas." 

We  can  now  understand  both  the  origin  and  the  enormous  pro- 
pagation of  the  theosophic  riddle  and  the  theosophic  hymn,  which  is 
always  more  or  less  of  a  riddle.  Grown  from  folk-lore  roots,  fructified 
by  the  Hindus'  intense  appreciation  of  all  relations  as. mysteries, 
it  grew  to  full  strength  in  connection  with  the  sacrifice  and  its 
patronage  of  a  superior  variety  of  religious  intellect.  The  highest 
forms  of  Hindu  religion  have  always  operated  from  the  ontological 
side,  from  the  severely  intellectual  side.  Faith  and  piety,  sentiment 
and  emotion,  are  almost  entirely  wanting  in  early  Brahmanism, 
although  in  later  times  hhakti,  or  piety,  tends  to  rival  the  religious 
emotions  of  John  Tauler  and  Thomas  k  Kempis.   No  one  will  say  that 


486  BRAHMANISM  AND   BUDDHISM 

theosophic  thought  would  not  have  existed  without  the  technicalities 
of  the  sacrifice  and  its  intellectual  scintillations,  but  it  is  easy  to  see 
that  it  owes  a  great  deal  of  its  development  to  the  sacrifice.  Wisdom- 
searching  Rajas  weary  of  the  world,  Janaka  and  Ajatagatru,  Buddha 
and  Bimbisara,  have  as  much  to  do  with  the  development  of  Hindu 
religion  as  the  thirst  for  new  truth  native  in  the  Brahmans  them- 
selves. They  are  the  Maecenases  of  the  "poor  clerics,"  and  they, 
having  a  superabundance  of  the  world,  are  attracted  permanently 
to  the  things  beyond.  So,  without  doubt,  early  theosophy  grew 
under  the  same  patronage,  in  a  natural  desire  of  the  Brahmans  to 
vitalize  the  outer  forms  of  the  ritual  technicalities;  in  a  natural  desire, 
too,  to  obtain  position  and  reputation  by  something  better  than  the 
handling  with  rigid  correctness  of  firewood  and  sacrificial  ladle,  of 
soma  drink  and  oblations  of  melted  butter. 

The  extent  to  which  the  riddle  habit  had  taken  hold  of  those  early 
philosophers  may  be  seen  in  the  outer  form  of  the  riddles  themselves. 
In  the  cases  hitherto  mentioned,  the  question  is  stated  in  full,  and 
the  answer  is  given  in  full.  But  this  is  not  the  only  form.  Sometimes 
(Aitareya  Brahmana,  5,  25,  15  ff.)  the  riddle  is  put  in  a  concise 
categorical  statement,  instead  of  a  question;  the  answer  again 
follows.  Again  —  and  this  is  the  most  common  form  —  the  riddle  is 
put  either  in  the  form  of  a  categorical  statement  or  a  question;  the 
answer  is  withheld :  either  it  is  held  to  be  too  obvious,  or  the  object  is 
to  impart  additional  interest  and  mystery  to  the  riddle.  Finally 
there  are  riddles  (Aitareya  Brahmana,  5,  25,  23;  Agvalayana  ^rau- 
tasutra,  8,  13,  14)  which  contain  only  the  answer  to  a  question, 
which  is  presupposed  and  easily  supplied.  Countless  statements 
based  on  remote  analogies,  harboring  violent  paradoxes,  indeed  at 
first  sight  nonsense,  are  in  reality  riddles.  There  is  hardly  anything 
in  the  wide  world  of  things  and  thoughts  which  does  not  share  some 
quality  with  something  else:  this  is  enough  to  justify  identification. 
When  the  essence  or  outer  form  fails,  the  name  opens  the  door  to 
a  lab3n'inth  of  etymological  crookedness  in  which  every  road  leads 
to  every  goal :  the  name  and  the  thing  {ndma  and  ru-pa)  are  of  equal 
value  and  dignity. 

The  Rig- Veda,  the  most  important  of  Hindu  books,  contains  two 
riddle  hymns  of  great  interest,  about  neither  of  which  the  last  word 
has  been  said.  One  (8,  29)  is  a  hymn  of  ten  small  crisp  stanzas  which, 
I  venture  to  say,  is  a  so-called  nivid,  or  invitation  to  the  gods  to 
come  to  the  sacrifice.  But  what  kind  of  an  invitation?  Instead  of 
the  usual  clear  note  of  fervent  call,  ten  varieties  of  gods  are  merely 
indicated  by  their  most  salient  qualities.  The  names  of  the  gods  are 
never  mentioned,  but  instead  catch-words,  as  it  were  leit-motifs  in 
the  Wagnerian  sense,  which  describe  them  so  definitely  as  to  leave  no 
doubt  as  to  which  one  is  meant.  The  stanzas  are  arranged  so  that  the 


THE  ORIGIN  OF  THEOSOPHY  487 

first  seven  deal  with  single  gods  {eka);  the  next  two  with  dual  gods 
(dvau);  the  tenth  with  a  plural  group  of  divine  beings  (eke).  To 
realize  how  subtly  all  this  is  done,  we  must  notice  that  the  three 
important  divinities  of  stanzas  three,  four,  and  five  all  carry  weapons 
or  tools;  yet  the  stanzas  keep  them  so  distinctly  apart  that  no  hearer 
could  possibly  have  been  in  doubt : 

3.  "An  axe  (vagi)  of  brass  one  carries  in  his  hands;  he  is  firmly 
fixed  among  the  gods." 

It  is  the  god  Tvashtar,  ''  Fashioner." 

4.  "A  bolt  (vajra)  is  fixed  within  the  hand  of  one;  the  demons 
with  it  does  he  slay." 

It  is  the  god  Indra,  the  Hercules  of  the  Veda. 

5.  "A  sharp  weapon  one  holds  in  his  hand;  strong  (ugra)  he  is; 
the  urine  (i.  e.  rain)  of  heaven  is  his  remedy  (jalashahheshaja)." 

It  is  the  god  Rudra  (Civa). 
The  eighth  stanza  reads: 

vibhir  dva  carata  ekaya  saha  pro  pravaseva  vasatah. 

"Two  gods  together  with  one  goddess  travel,  drawn  by  birds; 
like  travelers  do  they  travel  far." 

The  two  Agvins,  the  young  sons  of  the  morning,  suspiciously 
similar  to  the  Dioskuri,  Castor  and  Pollux,  travel  with  their  bride 
Surya,  the  young  sun-maiden,  upon  a  car  drawn  by  birds.  As  they 
are  at  the  same  time  the  heavenly  physicians,  they  are  thought  to 
be  particularly  welcome  guests,  and  they  stop  off,  in  the  course  of 
their  travels,  at  the  houses  of  the  pious,  and  this  cunning  riddle 
is  the  invitation  extended  to  them. 

The  other  hymn  of  the  Rig- Veda  (1,  164)  is  the  pikce  de  resistance 
of  the  riddle  literature.  It  is  an  assemblage  of  fifty-two  longer  stanzas, 
all  of  them,  except  one,  riddles  whose  answers  are  not  given.  The 
one  whose  answer  is  stated  is  identical  with  the  first  one  cited  in  this 
paper.  The  others  involve  objects  or  ideas  which,  instead  of  being 
called  by  their  ordinary  names,  are  indicated,  either  by  their  well- 
known  qualities,  or,  preferably,  by  some  mystic  or  symbolic  indica- 
tion. Numbers  especially  play  a  great  part  in  these  indications.  The 
subjects  are  either  cosmic,  that  is,  pertaining  to  nature;  mythological, 
that  is,  referring  to  the  accepted  legends  about  the  gods;  psycho- 
physical, that  is,  pertaining  to  the  human  organs  and  sensations; 
or  finally,  crude  and  tentative  philosophy  or  theosophy.  Heaven  and 
earth,  sun  and  moon,  air,  clouds  and  rain;  the  course  of  the  sun,  the 
year,  the  seasons,  months,  days  and  nights;  the  human  voice,  self- 
consciousness,  life  and  death;  the  origin  of  the  first  creature  and  the 
originator  of  the  universe  —  such  are  the  abrupt  and  bold  themes. 
The  mysticism  and  symbolism  of  these  riddles  make  their  solution 
a  task  of  unequal  certainty;  yet  on  the  whole  they  also  are  remark- 


488  BRAHMANISM  AND   BUDDHISM 

ably  clear,  considering  the  stout  efforts  that  seem  to  have  been 
made  to  obfuscate  their  sense. 

The  first  riddle  is : 

"Of  this  dear  gray  Hotar  priest  the  middle  brother  is  of  the  rock; 
the  third  brother  carries  ghee  on  his  back.  Here  have  I  seen  the 
householder  that  has  seven  sons." 

It  is  the  god  Agni,  "Fire/'  in  three  important  aspects.  The  first 
is  the  sun,  or  heavenly  fire,  the  old,  or  immemorial  sacrifice  fire  in 
the  sky;  the  second  is  the  fire  of  the  heavenly  rock,  or  cloud,  that  is, 
lightning;  the  third  is  the  earthly  sacrifice  fire  upon  whose  back  the 
oblations  of  ghee  are  poured.  The  whole  is  the  household  fire  with 
seven  sons,  that  is,  many  tongues. 

The  second  riddle  is:  "Seven  hitch  the  car  that  has  one  wheel; 
a  single  horse  that  has  seven  names  draws  it.  The  wheel  of  three 
naves  is  imperishable,  and  not  to  be  checked:  upon  it  do  all  beings 
stand." 

The  riddle  is  in  the  main  clear.  The  answer  is  the  sun.  A  single 
wheel  drawn  by  the  seven  sun-steeds  courses  on  the  sky.  The  three 
naves  are  either  three  divisions  of  the  day,  or,  less  probably,  of  the 
year.  In  the  light  of  the  imperishable  sun  all  beings  carry  on  their 
existence. 

As  a  specimen  of  a  theosophic  riddle  we  may  take  46.  It  contains 
the  suggestion,  fateful  for  all  advanced  Hindu  thought,  that  above 
and  behind  the  great  multitude  of  gods  there  is  one  supreme  per- 
sonality; behind  the  gods  there  is  that  "Only  Being"  of  whom  the 
gods  are  but  various  names. 

"  They  call  (it)  Indra,  Mitra,  Varuna,  and  Agni,  or  the  heavenly 
bird  Garutmant  (the  sun).  The  sages  call  the  One  Being  in  many 
ways;  they  call  it  Agni,  Yama,  Mataricvan." 

It  is  but  a  step  from  this  idea  to  the  pantheistic,  absolute,  without 
a  second,  Brahman- Atman  of  the  Upanishads  and  the  Vedanta 
philosophy  —  that  perfervid  monism,  the  like  of  which  the  world 
has  not  seen  outside  of  India. 

Significantly  this  riddle  habit  has  insinuated  itself  into  the  more 
systematic  and  continuous  speculations.  There  is  a  famous  hymn. 
Rig- Veda,  10,  121,  in  which  Prajapati,  the  lord  of  creatures  and  the 
world,  the  typical  Father-god,  is  lauded  without  stint,  but  his  name 
is  never  mentioned:  instead  at  the  end  of  each  stanza,  the  question 
is  asked  as  a  kind  of  riddle,  "  Who  is  this  god  that  has  such  and  such 
qualities,  and  performs  such  and  such  wonderful  deeds?"  Of  course 
every  one  knows,  but  the  later  theologians  have  gravely  constructed 
a  god  "Who"  out  of  the  question:  mirahile  dictu,  the  riddle  ques- 
tion turned  into  an  anthropomorphic  god! 

1.  "In  the  beginning  there  arose  the  germ  of  golden  light;    he 


THE  ORIGIN   OF   THEOSOPHY  489 

was  the  one  born  lord  of  all  that  is.  He  established  the  earth  and  this 
sky  —  who  is  the  god  to  whom  we  should  offer  our  oblations?  " 

3.  "  He  who  through  his  power  became  the  sole  king  of  this  breath- 
ing and  slumbering  world;  he  who  governs  all,  men  and  beasts  — 
who  is  the  god  to  whom  we  should  offer  our  oblations?" 

There  are  two  points  which  impress  themselves  forcibly  in  connec- 
tion with  these  riddles  as  we  see  them  put  into  the  service  of  philo- 
sophic speculation.  First,  the  cool  intellectuahty  of  Hindu  theosophy, 
its  clever  yet  often  mechanical  play  with  terms,  and  its  growingly 
rigid  and  logical  definitions  are  unquestionably  in  a  measure  the 
children  in  direct  descent  of  the  riddle  habit,  which  has  found  its 
way  from  folk-lore  beginnings  into  myth,  liturgy,  and  philosophy. 
That  the  Hindus  of  the  time  of  our  texts  took  these  things  seriously, 
we  can  see  from  the  name  they  have  given  the  entire  habit  and 
practice  —  brahmodya,  discussion  of  the  brahma.  The  name  is  in 
any  case  daring;  but  it  would  be  childish,  unless,  at  the  time  of  its 
giving,  the  higher  rather  than  the  lower,  the  mystic  philosophic  (in 
the  broadest  sense)  rather  than  the  trivial,  riddles  were  in  the  mind's 
eye.  Anyhow  it  is  quite  clear  that  in  India,  and,  so  far  as  I  know, 
in  India  only,  the  riddle,  to  use  the  French  expression,  has  arrived. 
It  has  there  become  a  vehicle  and  doubtless  also  a  promoter  of 
higher,  or,  let  us  say,  more  cautiously,  persistently  complicated 
thought,  and  it  approaches  in  dignity  the  other  earlier  efforts  to 
solve  the  mystery  of  existence  and  the  universe,  as  they  appear  in 
the  theosophic  hymns  of  the  Veda  and  in  the  prose  Upanishads. 

There  is  a  second  matter  upon  which  these  riddles  throw  strong 
light.  A  distinguished  scholar  has  recently  advanced  the  theory  that 
Hindu  philosophy  is  not,  as  has  been  tacitly  assumed,  the  product 
of  Brahmanical  intellect,  but  that  it  was  due  to  the  spiritual  efforts 
of  the  Royal  or  Warrior  Caste.  Professor  Garbe,^  of  the  University  of 
Tiibingen,  is  an  eminent  student  of  Hindu  philosophy,  and  at  the 
same  time  well  versed  in  the  early  literature  of  the  Vedas.  He  is 
not  an  admirer  of  Brahman  civilization:  on  more  than  one  occasion 
has  he  poured  out  the  vials  of  his  just  wrath  against  the  many  preten- 
sions and  the  cruelties  which  the  Brahmans  have  practiced  during  the 
period  of  their  ascendency  in  India  through  several  millenniums.  But 
not  content  with  that,  he  believes  that  the  Brahmans  were  not  only 
bold  bad  men,  but  also  that  they  were  too  stupid  to  have  worked 
their  way  from  the  sandy  wastes  of  ritualism  to  the  green  summits 
where  grows  the  higher  thought  of  India,  notably  that  monism 
which  is  the  Hindu  intellectual  idea  par  excellence.  For  centuries 
the  Brahmans.  were  engaged  in  excogitating  sacrifice  after  sacrifice, 
and  hair-splitting  definitions  and  explanations  of  senseless  ritualistic 

»  See  the  first  article  in  his  volxime  of  essays,  entitled  "  Beitrage  zur  Indischen 
Kulturgeschichte"  (BerUn,  1903). 


490  BRAHMANISM  AND   BUDDHISM 

practices.  All  at  once,  says  Professor  Garbe,  lofty  thought  appears 
upon  the  scene.  To  be  sure,  even  then  the  traditional  god-lore, 
sacrificial  lore,  and  folk-lore  are  not  rejected,  but  the  spirit  is  no 
longer  satisfied  with  the  cheap  mysteries  of  the  sacrificial  altar;  a 
passionate  desire  to  solve  the  riddle  of  the  universe  and  its  relation 
to  the  own  self  holds  the  mind  captive;  nothing  less  will  satisfy. 
In  this  observation  of  Professor  Garbe  everything  is  correct,  nay  even 
familiar,  except  the  words  "all  at  once."  Mental  revolutions  rarely 
come  all  at  once;  least  of  all  in  India.  The  evidence  of  fairly  con- 
tinuous records  shows  that  every  important  Hindu  thought  has  its 
beginning,  its  middle,  and  its  final  development.  Now  the  Vedic 
riddle  is  certainly  a  product  which  has  been  fostered  up  to  its  actual 
scope,  an  extraordinary  scope,  as  we  have  seen,  by  the  Brahmans.  It 
is  tied  by  so  many  threads  to  Brahmanical  literature  and  Brah- 
manical  performances  that  there  can  be  no  doubt.  All  the  riddles 
occur  in  the  midst  of  unquestioned  Brahmanical  texts;  most  of  them 
are  in  the  standard  metres  of  the  Brahmanical  Vedas;  a  reasonable 
explanation  why  they  were  taken  up  and  propagated  by  the  Brah- 
mans, namely,  to  enhance  the  interest  and  importance  of  their 
intellectual  performances,  has  been  stated  above.  No  other  reason 
has  ever  been  suggested. 

Now  the  boundary  line  between  theosophic  riddle  and  the  more 
set  efforts  at  theosophic  speculations  cannot  be  found.  "They  call 
it  Indra,  Mitra,  Varuna,  and  Agni,  or  the  heavenly  bird  Garutmant; 
the  sages  call  the  One  Being  in  many  ways,"  etc.  This  is  a  riddle,  as 
we  have  seen.  How  far  is  this  from  another  statement  in  a  hymn 
of  the  Rig- Veda  (10,  129,  2):  "That  One  breathed  (itself),  without 
breath,  through  its  own  will;  other  than  it  there  nothing  since  has 
been."  Here  we  have  the  severest  monism  in  a  Brahmanical  hymn 
in  the  same  metre  (trishtubh)  in  which  the  Vedic  poets  loved  to  call 
upon  their  fustian  god  Indra.  Even  Brahmanical  nature-worship 
is  dashed  again  and  again  with  monism.  Rig- Veda,  1,  115,  1,  says  of 
Surya,  the  sun:  "The  sun  is  the  Self  or  Soul  of  all  that  moves  or 
stands."  Another  stanza  (Rig- Veda,  3,  62,  10),  the  famous  so-called 
Savitrl,  which  remains  sacrosanct  at  all  times,  and  is  recited  to  this 
day  by  every  orthodox  Hindu,  turns  to  Savitar,  another  form  of  the 
sun: 

"We  meditate  on  the  adorable  light  of  divine  Savitar,  that  he 
may  arouse  our  holy  thoughts." 

Here  is  almost  the  first  touch  of  that  inimitable  combination  of  the 
Upanishads,  the  Atman  "breath"  and  the  Brahma  "holy  thought," 
that  is,  the  combination  of  physical  and  spiritual  force  into  one 
pantheistic  One  and  All.  As  a  modern  Hindu,  the  late  Rajendralal 
Mitra,  says  of  the  Savitrl:^  "It  is,  of  course,  impossible  to  say 
*  Introduction  to  his  edition  of  the  Gopatha-Brahmana,  p.  24. 


THE  ORIGIN  OF  THEOSOPHY  491 

what  the  author  of  the  Savitri  had  in  view,  but  his  Indian  commen- 
tators, both  ancient  and  modern,  are  at  one  in  believing  that  he 
rose  from  nature  up  to  nature's  god,  and  adored  that  subHme  lumin- 
ary which  is  visible  only  to  the  eye  of  reason,  and  not  the  planet  we 
daily  see  in  its  course."  Katyayana,  in  his  Index  to  the  Rig- Veda 
(the  so-called  AnukramanI),  after  reducing  all  the  gods  of  the  Veda 
to  three  types,  to  Agni  (fire  and  light  on  earth),  to  Vayu  (air  or  wind 
in  the  atmosphere),  and  to  Surya  (sun  in  the  sky),  proceeds  still  far- 
ther to  assert  that  there  is  only  one  deity,  namely  the  "Great  Self" 
(rnahan  dtma),  and  some  say  that  he  is  the  Sun,  or  that  the  Sun  is 
he."   Similarly  Yaska  in  the  Nirukta. 

I  am  afraid  that  Professor  Garbe  has  worked  himself  into  the 
state  of  mind  that  there  is  only  one  kind  of  good  Brahman,  namely, 
a  dead  Brahman,  to  paraphrase  a  saying  about  that  other  Indian, 
the  American  Indian.  Selfishness,  foolishness,  bigotry,  and  cruelty 
galore  —  the  marks  of  these  some  Brahmans  have  left  in  their  com- 
positions, foolishly  as  behoves  knaves.  But  there  were  Brahmans 
and  Brahmans.  The  older  Upanishads,  written  in  the  exact  language 
and  style  of  the  so-called  prose  Brahmana  texts,  figuring,  indeed,  as 
parts  of  these  compositions,  joining  their  speculations  closely  to  their 
ritualistic  mysticism,  were  composed  by  Brahmans  who  had  risen 
to  the  conviction  that  not  "  the  way  of  works  "  lies  the  salvation  that 
is  knowledge.  Countless  Brahmanical  names  crowd  these  texts: 
Naciketas,  and  Qvetaketu;  Gargya  and  Yajnavalkya,  and  many 
others.  Even  the  wives  of  great  Brahmans  participate  in  these 
spiritual  tourneys,  and  occasionally  rise  to  a  subtler  appreciation 
than  their  lords  of  the  mystery  of  the  world  and  the  riddle  of  existence. 

Professor  Garbe  has  been  attracted  to  his  position  by  the  interest- 
ing fact  that  the  Upanishads  narrate  on  several  occasions  that  the 
knowledge  of  the  ultimate  philosophy  was  in  the  keeping  of  men  of 
royal  caste,  and  that  these  taught  their  knowledge,  to  Brahmans. 
This  is  put  in  such  a  way  that  the  Brahman,  after  having  aired  his 
own  stock  of  theosophy,  "lays  down"  before  the  king's  superior 
insight.  The  king  is  then  represented  as  graciously  bestowing  his 
saving  knowledge  upon  the  Brahman,  Once  or  twice,  however,  the 
king  turns  braggart,  and  mars  his  act  of  generosity  by  claiming 
that  the  warrior  caste  are  the  real  thing,  and  that  they  alone  in  all 
the  world  are  able  to  illumine  these  profound  and  obscure  matters. 
I  doubt  whether  this  justifies  us  in  regarding  the  warrior  caste 
as  the  spiritual  saviors  of  India.  In  the  first  place  the  very  texts 
which  narrate  these  exploits  of  the  Kshatriyas  are  unquestionably 
Brahmanic.  Would  the  arrogance  and  selfishness  of  the  Brahmans 
have  allowed  them  to  preserve  and  propagate  facts  calculated  to 
injure  permanently  their  own  standing?    Surely  not. 

The  situation  is  somewhat  as  follows:  There  never  was  a  time  in 


492  BRAHMANISM  AND   BUDDHISM 

India  when  the  Aryas,  that  is,  the  three  upper  castes,  were  excluded 
from  Brahmanical  piety.  Now  as  theosophy,  by  its  very  terms, 
shuts  down  on  the  ritual,  the  special  profession  of  the  Brahmans, 
there  is  nothing  at  all  in  it  to  exclude  occasional  intelligent  and 
aspiring  men  of  the  other  noble  castes.  This  is  true  up  to  the  present 
day.  Here  is  where  the  good  Brahman,  of  whom  Professor  Garbe 
will  not  hear,  comes  in.  The  compilers  of  the  Upanishads  were  honest 
enough  to  recognize  this  participation,  to  express  their  unbounded 
admiration  of  it,  because  after  all  there  was  to  them  something 
unexpected  in  it.  They  are  carried  away  by  it  to  a  certain  amount 
of  ecstasy,  the  kind  of  ecstasy  that  goes  with  a  paradox,  as  when  the 
son  of  a  peasant  becomes  a  professor  at  a  university.  We  must  not 
forget  either  that  the  Rajas  were  after  all  the  source  from  whom 
all  blessings  flow.  Even  in  theosophic  occupation  the  Brahman 
remains  the  poor  cleric  with  the  Raja  as  his  Maecenas.  I  think  that 
any  one  who  reads  these  statements  of  royal  proficiency  attentively 
will  acknowledge  that  they  are  dashed  in  the  Upanishads,  as  they  are 
in  the  Ritual,  with  a  goodly  measure  of  captatio  benevolentiae.  In 
other  words,  the  genuine  admiration  of  high-minded  nobles  is  not 
necessarily  divorced  from  the  sub-consciousness  that  it  is  well  to 
admire  in  high  places.  Even  really  good  Brahmans  might  do  that. 
If  King  Janaka  of  Videha  punctuates  Yajiiavalkya's  brilliant  expo- 
sition of  theosophy  by  repeated  gifts  of  a  thousand  cows,  King 
Ajatagatru  of  Benares,  real  intellectual  as  he  is,  will  not  allow  ad- 
miring Brahmans  to  starve.  So  we  find  here  at  the  end  of  the  relig- 
ious development,  when  the  riddle  of  the  universe  has  been  solved, 
the  same  economic  conditions  which  govern  the  singing  of  Vedic 
hymn,  the  sacrifice  to  the  gods,  and  the  propounding  of  those  hum- 
bler riddles  which  form  the  starting-point  of  our  discussion.  But 
with  all  their  faults  we  love  them  still:  some  Brahmans,  though  not 
all  Brahmans,  were  at  all  times,  as  they  are  to  the  days  of  ^ankara 
and  Kumarila,  the  intellectual  leaders  of  India;  brilliant  helpers 
from  the  other  castes  lend  occasional  aid. 


SHORT  PAPER 

Mr.  Teitaro  Sxtzttki,  of  La  Salle,  Illinois,  contributed  a  paper  to  this  Sec- 
tion entitled  "Is  Buddhism  NihiUstic?"  After  stating  some  of  the  fundamental 
principles  of  Buddhism  and  of  "many  of  the  moral  precepts"  as  contained  in  the 
Book  of  Buddha's  Last  Sermon,  he  argued  that  Buddhism  can  be  said,  in  a  sense, 
to  be  purely  an  ethical  sj^tem,  but  by  no  means  a  gospel  of  annihilation.  After 
a  further  discussion  of  the  two  main  divisions  of  Buddhism  the  speaker  impressed 
upon  the  audience  that  all  religious  systems,  whatever  their  original  character, 
must  adapt  themselves  to  new  surroimdings  into  which  they  are  going  to  develop, 
and  to  undergo  such  transformation  as  best  to  suit  the  newly  created  needs. 
Any  religion  that  is  not  plastic  is  surely  doomed  to  die  as  soon  as  it  finds  itself 
in  a  totally  different  situation.  The  commonest  mistake  by  the  masses  is  to  take 
religious  influence  as  well-nigh  omnipotent. 


SECTION  B  —  MOHAMMEDISM 


SECTION  B  — MOHAMMEDISM 


{Hall  8,  September  23,  3  p.  m.) 

Chairman:   Professor  James  R.  Jewett,  U^ive^sitv  of  Chicago. 
Speakers:    Professor  Ignaz  Goldziher,  University  of  Budapest. 

Professor  Duncan  B.  Macdonald,  Hartford  Theological  Seminary . 


THE    PROGRESS    OF    ISLAMIC    SCIENCE    IN    THE    LAST 
THREE    DECADES 

BY   IGNAZ    GOLDZIHER 

[Ignaz  Goldziher,  Professor  of  Semitic  Philology,  University  of  Budapest,  Hungary . 
b.  Szekesfehervar,  1850.  Studied,  Budapest,  Berlin,  Leipzig,  Leyden"  and 
Cairo.  Lecturer,  University  of  Budapest,  1872-94;  Professor  of  Semitic  Philo- 
logy, ibid.  1894 .    Member  Hungarian  Academy.    Author  of  Studien  uber 

Tanchum  Jeruschalmi;  Der  Mythos  bei  den  Hebrdern  und  seine  geschichtliche  Ent- 
wicklung;  Muhammadanische  Studien;  Abhandlungemur  Arabischen  Philologie, 
and  many  noted  papers  on  Muhammadanism.] 

The  title  given  by  me  to  this  discourse  clearly  indicates  that  we 
study  and  judge  the  life  of  Islam,  and  the  documents  from  which 
we  leam  the  history  of  its  development,  from  quite  different  points 
of  view  from  our  predecessors  of  half  a  century  ago.  The  scientific 
study  of  Islam  has  exhibited  very  significant  progress  in  these  last 
decades.  I  not  only  mean  to  say  that  we  know  more  about  Islam, 
and  that  our  knowledge  is  more  abundant  than  that,  for  instance,  of 
Hadrian  Reland's  (1704)  contemporaries.  This  increase  of  know- 
ledge is  the  natural  outcome  of  two  things:  first,  a  more  intimate 
knowledge  of  the  countries  where  the  believers  in  this  religion  live; 
secondly,  the  always  increasing  knowledge  of  the  theological  liter- 
ature of  Islam  and  its  sects.  But  we  also  know  Islam  in  quite  a 
different  manner  from  our  predecessors.  That  is  to  say,  we  consider 
it  from  other  points  of  view  and  study  it  by  other  methods. 

There  are  two  groups  of  the  scientific  results  of  our  modern  time, 
which  could  not  pass  without  having  an  effect  upon  the  study  of 
Islam,  nor  could  the  researches  concerning  it  escape  their  influence 
either. 

First,  the  methods  of  historical  critics  which  have  proved  suc- 
cessful with  the  documents  of  other  religions.  In  other  words,  the 
traditional  documents  of  the  origin  and  development  of  Islam  have 
been  submitted  to  the  same  historical-critical  examination  as  we  have 


498  MOHAMMEDISM 

been  taught  to  apply  to  the  literary  witnesses  to  ancient  Christianity 
and  rabbinical  Judaism. 

Second,  the  science  of  comparative  religion,  which  has  only 
risen  in  these  last  decades,  has  established  ethno-psychological 
laws  of  universal  value  for  the  understanding  of  the  origin  and  growth 
of  the  religious  ideas  of  men;  of  it,  too,  we  have  made  use  in  com- 
prehending the  complicated  phenomena  of  the  historical  Islam. 

We  have,  then,  applied  the  results  of  these  two  methods,  the 
historical-critical  and  the  comparative-religious,  to  our  consideration 
of  Islam.  You  cannot  fail  to  observe  on  these  premises  the  total 
change  which  has  taken  place,  leaving  aside  special  monographs, 
when  you  compare  the  manuals  of  our  day  treating  universal  ques- 
tions with  those  of  older  literary  periods.  How  much  rubbish  has 
been  cleared  away,  from  what  different  points  of  view  the  seeds, 
bloom,  and  fruit  of  Islam  are  considered !  How  the  dead  letter  has 
been  brought  into  life  and  placed  in  living  connection  with  his- 
torical reality!  The  great  Hadrian  Reland,  to  whom  we  owe  the 
first  scientific  treatises  on  Islamic  institutions,  when  introducing 
his  subject,  believed  he  could  not  better  recommend  his  inquiries 
than  to  present  them  "  uti  docetur  in  templis  et  scholis  Mohammedicis  " ; 
that  is  to  say,  "as  they  are  taught  in  Muhammadan  temples  and 
schools."  We  modify  this  principle,  or  rather  enrich  it  and  repre- 
sent Islam  as  it  appears  in  its  development,  in  its  living  formation, 
and  in  its  effects  on  society  and  in  history. 

If,  after  these  introductory  remarks,  I  had  to  indicate  in  short 
the  results  themselves  which  this  new  scientific  view  of  Islamic 
matters  has  brought  to  light,  I  could  on  this  American  soil  deliver 
myself  of  that  task  with  the  greatest  ease.  Read  the  book  appearing 
scarcely  a  year  ago  in  New  York  by  my  learned  friend,  Duncan 
B.  Macdonald,^  Professor  in  Hartford,  whom  I  am  particularly  happy 
to  see  among  my  hearers  to-day,  and  I  feel  sure  the  volume  will  afford 
enjoyable  reading  for  you  all.  You  will  find  there  united  in  inter- 
esting literary  form,  and  with  exact  scientific  touch,  the  results 
to  which  the  modern  scientific  views  lead,  and  a  solid  conclusive 
summing-up  of  conscientious  and  minute  researches  about  Islamic 
development,  as  it  appears  in  a  literature  embracing  thirteen  cen- 
turies. It  is  a  contribution  offered  by  America  to  this  department 
of  knowledge,  calling  forth  our  thanks. 

But  what  are  the  paths  modern  science  had  to  follow  to  come 
to  such  results?  This  shall  form  the  subject  of  my  reflections  to- 
day. 

*  Developm''nt  of  Muslim  Theology,  Jurisprudence  and  Constitutional  Theory, 
by  Duncan  B.  Macdonald.  New  York  (Charles  Scribner's  Sons),  1903.  (Scries  of 
Hand-Books  in  Semitics,  edited  by  J.  A.  Craig,  no.  ix.) 


PROGRESS   OF   ISLAMIC  SCIENCE  499 

II 

It  is  no  longer  single  errors  of  detail  which  we  have  to  correct. 
Of  course  some  of  them  have  prolonged  their  lives  with  the  obstin- 
ate perseverance  peculiar  to  untruths,  creeping,  even  to  this  day, 
from  manual  to  manual  and  belonging  to  the  iron  fund  of  Oriental 
falsa.  Some  pet  notions  to  which  the  Orientalists  of  the  sixteenth 
and  seventeenth  centuries  clung  very  closely  are  now  extirpated 
root  and  branch  like  the  seven  nations  of  Canaan.  For  instance, 
you  could  read  in  older  works  —  and  it  sometimes  appears  in  news- 
papers even  to  the  present  day  —  that  Muhammad  found  his  last 
resting-place  in  Mekka  in  the  holy  Ka'bah,  and  also  that  his  tomb 
there  is  the  goal  of  the  famous  pilgrimage  of  Islam.  The  tale  about 
the  magnetic  walls,  between  which  the  coffin  of  the  Prophet  is  sus- 
pended in  the  air,  has  —  we  hope  —  vanished  altogether.  The  books 
about  the  East  and  the  travels  of  the  sixteenth  and  seventeenth 
centuries  could  not  do  without  that  fable.  The  idea  universally 
spread  in  past  centuries,  that  every  Jew  wishing  to  share  the  Pro- 
phet's Paradise  as  a  true  Believer  was  obliged  to  pass  through  the 
Christian  religion,  by  being  regularly  baptized,  as  Jesus  is  also  ac- 
knowledged by  Islam  as  a  prophet,  has  likewise  disappeared,  though 
Martinus  Baumgarten  of  Niirnberg  (1507)  was  not  the  last  to  believe 
and  copy  the  story.  ^ 

These  and  many  other  things,  we  are  now  luckily  done  with. 
They  did  not  endure  until  we  had  penetrated  with  our  critical  lead 
into  the  depths  of  popular  ideas.  But  what  was  sustained  more 
obstinately  than  a  dozen  such  blunders  was  the  thoroughly  false 
doctrine,  which  had  caught  hold  on  our  educational  literature; 
namely,  that  the  barrier  between  the  two  great  divisions  of  Islam, 
the  Sunnites  and  Shi'ites,  consists  in  this,  that  the  latter  recognize 
beside  the  Koran  nothing  as  an  authority,  while  the  former  acknow- 
ledge beside  that  revealed  religious  book  also  the  Sunna,  namely, 
tradition,  as  a  source  of  religious  conduct  and  creed;  an  erroneous 
view  which  to  this  day  has  not  yet  disappeared  from  the  schools. 

But  the  errors  in  these  particular  questions  can  only  be  attributed 
to  false  information.  With  correct  information  such  blunders  could 
have  been  easily  prevented. 

The  true  progress  of  the  science  of  Islam,  of  which  we  are  to  speak 
here,  brings  us  into  close  connection  with  the  forming  and  developing 
forces  and  factors  of  Islam.  You  can  now  ask  first  of  all,  Do  we 
know  and  understand  the  Koran  better  than  the  scholars  of  the 
preceding  generation,  and  can  we  present  this  advanced  knowledge 
to  an  instructed  public  in  a  sure  form?    This  first  question  we  can 

*  Cf.  the  present  writer's  article:  "Die  synibolische  Rose  in  den  nordafri- 
kanischen  religiosen  Orden,"  in  Oesterreichische  Monatsschrift  fur  den  Orient,  1890, 
p.  8  ff.,  where  are  presented  a  considerable  number  of  such  mistake?. 


500  MOHAMMEDISM 

at  once  answer  in  the  affirmative.  Not  that  we  have  learned  a  great 
deal  as  regards  the  language  and  the  exegesis  of  this  sacred  book 
of  Islam,  though  there  are  peculiarities  (for  instance  the  knowledge 
of  borrowed  words)  ^  by  which  our  understanding  has  increased  in 
this  too.  Yet  in  general  the  philological  problems  of  the  Koran  are 
not  so  complicated  as  those  of  the  Vedas  and  the  Avesta.  But  the 
indefatigable  zeal  and  masterly  penetration  of  scholars  like  Thebdor 
Noldeke,  W.  Robertson  Smith,  and  Julius  Wellhausen  ^  have,  out 
of  most  minute  researches  into  and  criticism  of  the  literary  remains 
and  by  simultaneous  comparison  with  other  Semitic  faiths,  diffused 
surprising  light  upon  pre-Islamic  religion  and  the  sentiments  and 
institutions  of  the  old  Arabians:  a  significant  progress  compared  to 
the  last  preceding  valuable  analysis  of  the  pre-Islamic  religion  by 
Osiander  (1853)  and  Ludolf  Krehl  (1862).  By  the  deepening  of  our 
knowledge  about  the  pre-Islamic  state  of  Arabian  religion,  about 
the  civilization  and  ethical  positions,  the  customs  and  laws  of  the 
tribes,  our  points  of  view  for  judging  Muhammad's  reform  are  essen- 
tially enriched  and  its  starting-points  and  antecedences  are  now 
clearer  to  our  eye.  In  one  word:  the  environment,  in  which  the 
Prophet  grew,  the  community  to  which  he  applied  himself  with  his 
enthusiastic  speech,  have  approached  us  scientifically  and  therefore 
we  understand  them  better. 

The  impulse  also  inducing  Muhammad  to  destroy  the  pagan 
traditions  of  his  native  country,  the  Jewish  and  Christian  elements, 
namely,  in  his  teaching,  have  been  examined  closer'  and  closer. 
Though  the  theological  interest  has  from  the  beginning  of  these 
studies  ever  favored  the  inquiry  into  the  dependence  of  Islam  on 
Judaism  and  Christianity,  even  this  old  tendency  has  again  taken 
a  new  quickening,  and  I  take  pleasure  in  referring  at  this  place  to 
the  valuable  Eli  Lectures  of  the  American  scholar  Henry  Preserved 
Smith  on  the  relationship  of  the  Koran  to  the  Old  and  the  New 
Testament.' 

Among  the  sources  from  which  Muhammad  derived  the  construct- 
ive thoughts  of  his  doctrine,  Parseeism  enters  more  and  more  into 
the  foreground  of  consideration.    One  could  rather  presume  that  the 

'  S.  Fraenkel,  De  vocahulis  in  antiquis  Arabum  carminibus  et  in  Corano  peregri- 
nis  (Lugd.  Batav.  1880).  — Dvorak,  iiber  die  Fremdworter  in  Koran  (Wien,  1885, 
Sitzungsber.  der  Akad.  der  Wiss.  zu  Wien,  Phil.  hist.  CI.  vol.  109). 

*  W.  Robertson  Smith,  Kinship  and  Marriage  in  Early  Arabia  (Cambridge, 
1885;  new  edition,  London,  1903);  J.  Wellhausen,  Resfe  arabischen  Heidenthums 
gesammeltund  erleutert  (Beriin,  1887,  Skizzen  und  Vorarbeiten,  part  3;  new  edi- 
tion, Beriin,  1897),  and  the  important  criticisms  of  these  works  by  Th.  Noldeke,  in 
Z  D  M  G.  vols.  40  and  41.  — W.  Robertson  Smith,  Lectures  on  the  Religion  of  the 
Semites,  First  Series  (London,  1889;  new  edition,  1899);  Wellhausen,  Die  Ehe 
bei  den  Arabern  (Gottingen,  1893,  in  Nachrichten  von  der  Kgl.  Gesellsch  der  Wiss. 
no.  xi). 

'  H.  P.  Smith,  The  Bible  and  Islam,  or  the  Influence  of  the  Old  and  New  Testa- 
ments on  the  Religion  of  Mohammed,  being  the  Eli  Lectures  for  1897. 


PROGRESS   OF   ISLAMIC  SCIENCE  501 

Prophet  of  Arabia  has  been  influenced,  besides  some  eschatological 
elements  which  the  believers  of  monotheistic  religions  all  owe  to  Par- 
seeism,  also  in  cither  religious  points  of  view  by  the  Madjus  (as  he  calls 
the  followers  of  Parseeism)  who  were  accessible  to  him.  It  is  not  very 
attractive,  that  the  idea  of  the  personal  "impurity"  of  the  Unbeliever 
—  a  Persian  idea  —  should  be  the  fruit  of  this  influence.  And  indeed, 
at  a  closer  view  we  find  that  the  motives  to  intolerance,  the  persecu- 
tion of  followers  of  other  persuasions,  and  to  inter-confessional  quar- 
rels show  themselves  also  in  the  further  development  of  Islam  as  the 
fruit  of  Persian  influence  and  not  as  the  primitive  effects  of  Arabism, 
which  is  quite  inoffensive  in  religious  respects.^  In  the  same  proportion 
as  the  analytical  researches  are  getting  deeper  and  deeper,  in  like 
manner  the  special  inquiries  about  single  points  of  Koranic  belief 
are  spreading  more  and  more.  Considering  the  manifold  theoretical 
divergences  existing  between  the  different  schools  as  to  the  dogmas 
which  all  could  freely  develop  within  their  spheres,  it  will  not  be  an 
easy  task  to  state  a  dogmatic  of  Islam  as  a  system,  though  desired 
from  so  many  sides,  which  could  be  compared  to  the  settled  structure 
of  the  dogmatics  of  any  Christian  confession.  My  regretted  teacher, 
Ludolf  Krehl  (died  in  1901),  who  was  one  of  the  most  competent 
authorities  in  this  matter,  has  enriched  science  with  many  valuable 
special  researches  ^  and  left  a  comprehensive  work  of  this  kind,  which 
will,  let  us  hope,  be  published  by  his  pious  successors.  Meanwhile 
we  have  in  different  monographical  researches  many  a  useful 
treatise  on  the  religious  system  of  the  Koran.  Besides  the  work  of 
Hubert  Grimme  ^  embracing  the  whole  extent  of  this  sacred  book 
of  Islam,  we  have  monographs  on  Muhammad's  Doctrine  of  Revelation 
(1898,  by  Otto  Pautz)  *  and  also  on  The  Doctrine  of  Predestination  in 
Mussulman  Theology  (1902,  A.  de  Vlieger).^ 

*  Cf.  the  present  writer's  paper:  Inlamisme  et  Parsisme,  published  in  Actes  du 
premier  Congres  international  d'Histoire  des  Religions.   Vol.  i  (Paris,  1901). 

*  On  the  Doctrine  of  Predestination  in  the  Koran  and  its  Relation  to  Other  Islamic 
Dogmas  (Berichte  der  Kon.  Sachs.  Ges.  der  Wissensch.  Phil.  Hist.  CI.  for  1870); 
Contributions  to  Islamic  Dogmatics,  i  {ibid.  1885);  Muhammadan  View  on  what 
they  call  fitra  (Festgruss  an  Rudolf  Roth,  Stuttgart,  1893);  Contributions  to  the 
Characteristic  of  the.  Doctrine  about  "Faith"  in  Islam  (T^eipzig  University-program 
for  1877). 

'  A  System  of  Koranic  Theology  (Mohammed,  part  ii,  Miinster,  1895). 

*  Muhammads  Lehre  von  der  Offevbarung  QueUenmdssig  untersucht  (Leipzig, 
1898). 

*  The  doctrinal  differences  between  the  various  dogmatic  parties,  as  well  as 
their  history,  have  not  yet  been  worked  out  in  a  conclusive  manner  since  the 
attempt  made  by  Alfred  v.  Kremer,  in  his  Herrschende  Ideen  des  Islams  (Leipzig, 
1868)  and  by  Prof.  Houtsma,  in  his  Strijd  over  het  dogma  in  den  Islam  (Leide, 
1875).  That  is  the  reason  why  we  have  not  dealt  here  with  inquiries  concerning 
single  elements  relative  to  this  question.  But  we  should  mention  many  useful 
contributions  hereto  by  Martin  Schreiner  in  his  studies  published  m  Z  D  M  G, 
vols.  42,  52,  53,  and  in  the  Annual  Reports  of  the  Berlin  Lehranstalt  fiir  die  Wis- 
senschaft  des  Judenthums,  for  1895  and  1900. 

The  origin  and  the  historical  character  of  Sufism  (Islamic  theosoj)hy  and 
mysticism)  in  its  manifold  shapes  are  also  among  the  tasks  to  be  solved  in  times 
to  come. 


502  MOHAMMEDISM 

III 

Considering  the  mere  form,  there  is  certainly  no  seemingly  surer 
kind  of  authentication  than  the  great  volume  of  reports,  recognized 
as  the  tradition  of  Islam,  can  show  to  prove  its  credibility.  You 
there  meet  with  testimonies  reaching  backwards  from  generation  to 
generation  to  the  very  founders  and  from  trustworthy  inform- 
ants, who,  as  regards  character  and  moral  integrity,  are  above  all 
suspicion,  about  words  and  deeds  of  Muhammad  and  of  his  com- 
panions, who  report  the  words  and  deeds  of  their  Master.  You  will 
understand  with  what  painful  conscientiousness  the  pious  Muham- 
madans  applied  themselves  to  possess  the  Master's  words  in  authen- 
tic form  as  reported  by  the  best  witness.  On  this  depended  their 
exact  knowledge  of  the  sacred  history  of  Islam,  the  correctness  of 
their  creeds,  nay,  the  very  righteousness  of  their  religious  and  lawful 
life;  in  a  word,  the  conditions  of  their  salvation.  Holding  in  mind 
the  importance  of  this  matter,  full  care  was  bestowed  by  Islam 
upon  the  proof  of  authenticity  of  these  documents  and  also  upon  the 
statement  of  the  criteria  of  trustworthiness. 

We  can  boldly  assert  that  the  criticism  bestowed  by  the  science  of 
orthodox  Islam  upon  the  transmitted  bulk  of  tradition  is  in  general 
the  oldest  example  for  such  critical  activity  in  the  literature  of  the 
whole  world.  It  is  attested  to  have  existed  since  the  eighth  and 
ninth  centuries  of  our  era  and  to  have  attained  its  prime  in  the 
tenth.  And  strange  to  say,  we  must  state  here  that  the  merit  of 
having  first  formed  the  idea  of  criticism  of  religious  sources  is  due 
to  Islamic  theology.  Influenced  by  the  great  accuracy  bestowed  by 
conscientious  Islamic  critics  upon  their  material.  Occidental  students 
were  in  fact  benumbed  for  a  long  time  by  the  nimbus  of  authen- 
ticity and  truth  surrounding  those  collections  of  Muhammadan 
tradition  whose  professed  end  w^as  to  separate  the  chaff  from  the 
pure  com  by  the  application  of  an  apparently  strict  method. 

But  no  sooner  did  we  make  a  closer  inspection  than  we  had  to  come 
to  the  conclusion  that  the  points  of  view  from  which  the  Oriental 
critics  started  could  lead  to  many  a  delusive  result,  in  spite  of  the 
bona  fides  which  they  practiced.  There  are  other  critical  points  of 
view  that  are  of  value  in  our  mature  historical  criticism.  Thus  you 
can  find  in  the  authenticated  Islamic  tradition  contradictory  inform- 
ation about  the  same  events,  and  directly  opposed  utterances  and 
orders  of  the  Prophet  on  the  same  subject.  You  can  find  a  great 
number  of  anachronisms  which  could  only  —  as  their  theologians 
allow — be  understood  by  the  admission  of  prophetic  foresight;  there 
are  praising  and  blaming  remarks,  approving  and  admonishing 
sayings,  which  can  only  refer  to  circumstances  that  occurred  long 
after  the  time  from  which  those  traditions  profess  their  derivation. 


PROGRESS   OF  ISLAMIC  SCIENCE  503 

You  will  see  that  the  traditions  often  show  plainly  the  tendency  to 
uphold  the  lawfulness  of  the  then  actual  constitution  of  the  Islamic 
state;  since  their  collection  and  criticism  took  origin  under  the 
shadow  of  the  'Abbaside  Khalifate.  Nay,  we  have  proofs  that  say- 
ings, which  might  be  favorable  to  opposing  political  schemes  were 
directly  suppressed.  We  have  come,  therefore,  to  the  result  that 
the  tradition  acknowledged  as  authentic,  far  from  being  able  to 
pass  for  a  testimony  of  the  youth  of  Islam,  has  rather  the  varying 
stamp  of  the  diverging  directions  and  currents  prevailing  in  differ- 
ent circles  during  the  first  three  centuries.  Hence  the  contradict- 
ory accounts  and  orders  about  the  same  question  in  religious  and 
political  affairs.  Every  school  opinion  has  fabricated  an  authority 
reaching  back  to  the  Prophet's  time.  Each  of  the  diverging  doc- 
trines has  for  its  support  a  sentence  of  the  Prophet's,  which  bears 
every  appearance  of  authenticity,  presenting  itself  in  the  most  naive 
and  immediate  manner.  Orthodox  believers,  freethinkers,  anthropo- 
morphists,  and  spiritualists,  all  can  show  good  traditions  to  support^ 
their  doctrines. 

The  Islamic  tradition  presents  the  same  picture  in  political  history. 
The  distinguished  Professor  of  Strassburg,  Theodor  Noldeke,  has 
proved  recently  (1898)  in  a  classical  essay,  On  the  Tendentious  Con- 
struction of  the  History  of  the  Primitive  Ages  af  Islam, ^  how  reports 
about  questions  seemingly  trivial,  as,  Who  was  Muhammad's  first 
follower?  — about  the  minute  characteristics  of  Abu  Tdlib,  'All's 
father  —  also  of  'Abbas,  the  Prophet's  uncle  —  the  reports  about 
the  part  they  played  in  Muhammad's  childhood — were  produced 
by  political  and  constitutional  tendencies. 

The  question,  "To  what  end?"  offers  one  of  the  most  useful 
points  of  view  in  judging  the  tradition  of  Islam.  To  have  clear 
insight  into  the  laboratory  of  these  highly  appreciated  documents 
of  primeval  Islam,  we  must  always  keep  in  mind  the  ritualistic, 
dogmatic,  and  political  dissensions  of  struggling  parties,  which 
emerged  in  Islam  in  the  course  of  its  ancient  stages  of  development.^ 

Sometimes  the  very  text  of  the  tradition  lets  us  see,  as  it  wei-e,  its 
own  biography,  for  any  one  acquainted  with  the  technics  of  this  kind 
of  literature.  You  may  see  this,  for  instance,  in  a  little  fragment  of 
traditional  text,  which,  though  insignificant  in  itself,  yet  is  highly 
interesting  as  regards  the  history  of  civilization,  and  which  I  am 
going  to  put  before  you  in  translation.'  For  your  better  understand- 
ing I  must  premise  that  the  quotation  is  preceded  by  the  following 
doctrine  attributed  to  the  Prophet :  "  If  you  hear  that  the  plague  has 
broken  out  in  a  country,  do  not  go  there;  but  if  you  are  already 
there,  do  not  leave  the  country  from  fear  of  catching  the  illness, " 

'  ZDM  G,\o\  52. 

^  Cf.  the  author's  Muhammadanische  Studien,  vol.  ri  (Halle,  1890) 


504  MOHAMMEDISM 

You  see,  Islam  is  putting  up  here  a  practical  precept  of  how  the 
every-day  experience  of  contagious  diseases  may  be  somehow  squared 
with  the  conviction  that  one  cannot  escape  God's  decree,  and  that 
one  should  not  even  try  to  evade  it.  Two  opinions  seem  to  have 
existed  in  old  Islam  as  regards  infection.  The  one  does  not  admit 
any  causal  connection  of  events,  but  imputes  each  to  a  separate 
decree  of  God's.  Such  a  view  could  not  admit  the  possibility  of  a 
contagious  character  in  certain  diseases.  The  other  did  not  base 
the  explanation  of  facts  entirely  on  dogmatical  suppositions;  some 
at  least  cared,  in  spite  of  a  fatalistic  creed,  for  their  own  skin  and 
for  saving  their  own  property.  The  following  traditional  report 
shows  you  the  struggle  of  these  two  modes  of  proceeding: 

"Abu  Huraira  relates  that  the  Prophet  taught  the  following: 
there  is  no  contagion  and  no  cankering  worm  (causing  disease),  and  no 
soul-owls  (into  which,  according  to  the  belief  of  the  Arabs,  the  souls 
of  the  unavenged  are  transformed,  in  order  to  cry  for  the  murderer's 
•  blood).  Thereupon  a  Bedawi,  who  was  present,  threw  in:  *0  Mes- 
senger of  God!  but  how  is  it  that  we  see  camels  lying  fresh  and 
healthy  like  gazelles  in  the  sand  of  the  desert;  then  a  scabby  camel 
mixes  with  the  flock,  and  infects  all  the  healthy  animals? '  Then  the 
Prophet  replied:  'But  who  infected  this  sick  camel?' 

"  Abu  Salima  relates  that  he  heard  later  from  Abii  Huraira,  that 
the  Prophet  had  said :  '  One  must  not  bring  a  sick  one  among  healthy 
ones,'  and  that  he  (A.  H.)  denied  his  previous  comments.  Then 
we  said  to  him:  'Did  you  not  say  before,  in  the  Prophet's  name, 
"There  is  no  contagion"?  Then  he  muttered' something  in  the 
Ethiopic  language.  — Abii  Salima  says:  "I  have  never  noticed  that 
he  had  forgotten  anything,'"  (that  he  had  told  us  formerly)."^ 

You  can  believe  me  that  the  Oriental  commentators  were  not  want- 
ing in  ingenuity  for  making  the  shadow  disappear  which  was  cast 
by  the  story  just  mentioned  upon  the  earnestness  and  trustworthi- 
ness of  Abu  Huraira,  who  was  one  of  the  amplest  informants  from  the 
Master.  But,  however  naively  the  tale  presents  itself,  it  is  technically 
nothing  else  than  the  reflex  of,  first,  the  two  simultaneously  existing 
views  on  the  nature  and  eflficiency  of  infection;  secondly,  the  con- 
cession which  knowledge,  founded  on  experience,  wrung  from  a  re- 
ligious conception.  The  fact  of  such  a  concession  has  found  in 
Abu  Huraira 's  hesitation  and  revocation  a  form  suitable  for  these 
circles. 

One  is  entitled  to  conclude  that  this  critical  penetration  into  the 
primeval  documents  of  Islam  shows  a  great  progress  in  our  know- 
ledge of  its  oldest  history.  It  is  not  only  important,  as  regards  the 
religious  history  of  Islam,  but  also  as  concerns  the  criticism  of  the 
historical  tradition.  First  on  this  path  was  Alois  Sprenger,  who  not 
'  Bukhari,  Tibb  nr.  35,  Sahih  Muslim,  v,  p.  54. 


PROGRESS   OF   ISLAMIC  SCIENCE  505 

only  pointed  out,  in  his  Life  and  Doctrine  of  Mohammed  (1861-65), 
the  importance  of  the  traditions  as  an  historical  source,  but  also 
gave  many  hints  for  their  critical  use;  an  attempt,  it  is  true,  which 
has  not  removed  altogether  all  credulity  in  the  reconstruction  of 
the  ancient  history  of  Islam.  Since  the  great  storehouse  of  the  his- 
torical work  of  Tabari  became  universally  accessible  in  a  completed 
edition,  masters  of  historical  and  philological  criticism,  like  Noldeke, 
de  Goeje,  Wellhausen,^  and  their  followers,  have  given  us  examples 
how  we  can  gain  from  the  narratives  gathered  by  Tabari,  and  which 
often  represent  the  events  from  different  points  of  view,  by  com- 
paring them  with  other  data,  an  historical  stratification  of  sources 
which  can  be  used  to  construct  real  history. 

But  here  we  have  to  do  only  with  religious  tradition,  and  we 
have  to  bring  out  how  the  criticism  of  the  traditions  now  more  and 
more  prevalent  makes  for  a  progress  in  Islamic  science  not  to  be 
underestimated.  In  spite  of  the  radically  skeptical  tendency,  which  is 
imposed  on  it  as  a  duty  by  its  scheme,  its  method  has  proved  to  be 
a  good  means  to  lead  to  a  positive  history  of  the  early  development  of 
Islam. 

With  the  sources  of  Islamic  law  our  view  of  the  law  itself  must 
stand  in  the  closest  connection.  About  that  also  we  have  a  few 
words  to  say. 

IV 

The  idea  formed  about  these  matters,  which  are  generally  consid- 
ered the  zenith  of  Islamic  spirit,  has  undergone  a  total  change  in  the 
last  few  decades. 

No  later  than  two  centuries  after  the  birth  of  Islam,  in  the  first 
half  of  the  ninth  century  of  our  era,  we  find  a  well-developed  and 
thoroughly  elaborated  system  of  Islamic  law,  which  has  been  long 
considered  the  ripe  fruit  of  Arabian  genius. 

This  prejudice  is  now  altogether  removed,  the  more  so,  since  we 
have  learned  how  much  this  system  owes  to  Roman  law,  not  only 
in  its  particular  regulations,  but  also,  which  is  far  more  important, 
with  regard  to  questions  of  principle  in  methodology.  The  Arabic 
names  themselves  of  the  Islamic  science  of  law  and  of  its  authorities, 

*  M.  J.  de  Goeje,  Mimoire  de  la  Conquete  de  la  Syrie  (Leide,  1900)  [M4moires 
d'Histoire  et  de  Geographie  Orientales,  no.  2,  new  edition].  J.  Wellhausen,  Pro- 
legomena zur  dltesten  Geschichte  des  Islam  fSkizzen  und  Vorarbeiten,  vi];  the 
same:  Das  arabische  Reich  und  sein  Sturz  (Berlin,  1902). 

Our  knowledge  of  the  situation  under  the  Muhammadan  conquest  with  regard 
to  the  native  Christians,  especially  in  Egypt,  and  in  general  about  the  system  of 
administration  and  economy  in  the  primary  Islamic  state,  has  been,  after  the 
standard  works  of  Alfred  v.  Kremer,  considerably  promoted  by  the  study  of  the 
Vienna  Papyrus  documents  (Archduke  Rainer),  in  whose  examination  Professor 
V.  Karabacek  has  led  (Mittheilungen,  Vienna,  1886  ff).  We  may  hope  that  a 
further  increase  of  our  knowledge  will  be  gained  from  the  treasures  acquired 
lately  by  Heidelberg  University. 


506  MOHAMMEDISM 

have  been  proved  to  be  the  translation  of  corresponding  Latin  words. 
No  doubt  you  will  comprehend  that  the  progress  made  in  our 
knowledge  of  this  relationship  in  Islamic  law  could  not  remain  with- 
out influence  on  our  judgment  of  its  nature. 

But  this  again  had  to  give  way  to  new  ideas  also  from  another 
point  of  view.  The  system  of  the  Muhammadan  "Fikh,"  which,  as 
"rerum  humanarum  ac  divinarum  cognitio,"  extending  to  all  cir- 
cumstances of  orthodox  life:  to  ritual  law  in  the  widest  sense,  to 
legal  states  of  social  life,  to  the  laws  of  Divine  service,  almsgiving, 
fasting,  pilgrimage,  purity,  to  the  laws  of  food,  to  the  regulations 
concerning  religious  war,  as  well  as  to  the  fundamental  doctrines  of 
politics  and  the  constitution  of  the  state,  to  the  laws  of  family  life 
and  hereditary  affairs,  to  those  connected  with  obligations,  to  penal 
laws  and  judicial  proceedings  —  this  whole  encyclopedical  system  of 
religious  legislature  had  been  considered  as  an  actual  constitution  of 
law,  setting  up  the  organism  of  the  Muhammadan  state  and  family 
life,  elaborated  by  sagacious  legislators  according  to  the  practical 
wants  of  one  vast  empire,  and  whose  management  and  execution  had 
been  the  object  of  the  anxious  care  of  Muhammadan  authorities  for 
thirteen  centuries:  in  one  word,  as  a  Code  Napoleon  for  Islam. 

In  later  days,  historical  consideration  has  proved  that  only  a  small 
part  of  this  system,  connected  with  religious  and  family  life,  has 
a  practical  effect  as  of  old,  while  in  many  parts  of  merely  juristical 
character  this  theological  law  is  entirely  put  aside  in  actual  jurisdiction. 
You  see  that  we  have  not  here  to  do  with  a  living  system  of  law, 
and  also  that  those  students  of  law  have  been  on  a  wrong  path  who, 
without  looking  at  the  character  of  Islamic  law  in  the  light  of  history 
and  to  the  criticism  of  sources,  make  use  of  these  dead  codes  as  data 
for  the  knowledge  of  life,  and  base  their  studies  of  comparative  law 
on  this  view. 

To  the  same  distinguished  Dutch  Orientalist,  whose  great  work  upon 
Mekka,  beside  the  Manners  and  Customs  by  Edward  Lane,  presents 
the  most  reliable  and  attractive  description  of  Islamic  life  and 
society,^  we  owe  the  total  change,  carried  out  in  general  by  his 
works,  toward  a  right  knowledge  of  Muhammadan  law,  and  also  the 
reform  of  our  general  views  about  the  character  of  Fikh.  Snouck 
Hurgronje  was  really  the  first  who  set  forth  with  great  acuteness 
and  sure  judgment  the  historical  truth,  namely,  that  what  we  call 
Muhammadan  law  is  nothing  but  an  ideal  law,  a  theoretical  system; 
in  a  word,  a  learned  school-law,  which  reflects  the  thoughts  of  pious 
theologians  about  the  arrangement  of  Islamic  society,  whose  sphere  of 
influence  was  willingly  extended  by  pious  rulers  —  as  far  as  possible 
—  but  which  as  a  whole  could  hardly  ever  have  been  the  real  prac- 
tical standard  of  public  life.  He  finds  there  rather  a  doctrine  of  duties 
'  G.  Snouck  Hui^ronje,  Mekka,  2  vols.   (Haag.  1888-S9.) 


PROGRESS   OF   ISLAMIC  SCIENCE  507 

{Pflichtenlehre)  of  quite  an  ideal  and  theological  character,  traced 
out  by  generations  of  religious  scholars,  who  wished  to  rule  life  by  the 
scale  of  an  age  which  in  their  idea  was  the  golden  period,  and  whose 
traditions  they  wished  to  maintain,  propagate,  and  develop.  Even 
the  penalties  for  offenses  against  religious  laws  are  often  nothing 
else  but  ideal  claims  of  the  pious,  dead  letters  conceived  in  studies 
and  fostered  in  the  hearts  of  God-fearing  scholars,  but  neglected  and 
suppressed  in  life  where  other  rules  became  prevailing.  We  find 
even  in  the  oldest  literature  of  Islam  many  complaints  about  the 
negligence  of  the  religious  law  by  'Ulema  in  their  struggle  against  the 
practical  judges,  that  is  to  say  against  the  executors  of  actual  law.* 

By  this  correct  definition  of  Fikh  as  a  doctrine  of  mere  duties,  the 
notion  of  its  character  appears  in  a  new  light.  The  scientific  historical 
judgment  of  this  discipline  entered  herewith  into  a  new  phase  of 
which  Snouck  Hurgronje  must  be  called  the  author.^ 

By  another  fundamental  doctrine  Dr.  Snouck  has  also  established 
a  new  point  of  view  for  the  understanding  of  the  legal  life  of  Islam. 
It  had  indeed  been  known  before  that  orthodox  Islam  has  four 
"roots"  in  its  law:  first,  the  Koran;  secondly,  tradition;  thirdly, 
deductive  reasoning;  and  fourthly,  the  consensus  of  the  orthodox 
community.  It  was  understood  also,  in  a  way,  that  the  validity  of 
these  sources  of  law  followed  each  other  in  descending  rank;  that 
is  to  say,  the  consideration  of  the  ecclesiastic  consensus  only  occu- 
pied the  place  of  a  root  of  law,  in  case  scripture,  tradition,  and 
reasoning  forsook  us.  Now  we  know  —  and  this  knowledge  of  ours 
is  one  of  the  most  important  advances  in  the  science  of  Islam  —  that 
the  principle  of  consensus  (in  Arabic  Idjmd')  is  in  verity  the  key  to 
comprehending  the  phenomena  of  historical  Islam.  Not  so  much  the 
Koran  and  tradition  —  I  have  said  elsewhere  —  is  the  standard  for 
the  management  of  religious  matters,  as  the  manner  in  which  the 
words  and  sense  of  these  two  are  interpreted  by  the  common  feeling 
and  sense  of  the  competent  community. 

This  principle  is  the  foundation  and  the  legitimizing  basis  for 
the  admission,  even  for  the  obligatory  character  of  all  innovations 
adopted  by  Islam  in  the  course  of  its  history.  The  admission  of 
a  certain  dogmatic  method  in  explaining  Koranic  words,  the  author- 
ity awarded  to  the  acknowledged  collections  of  authentic  traditions, 
the  statement  of  what  has  to  pass  for  orthodox  in  law,  the  ad- 
mission of  newly  arisen  opinions  and  doctrines,  in  one  word,  the 

'  Cf .  the  present  writer's  paper,  Muhammadanisches  Recht  in  Theorie  und  Wirk- 
lichkeit,  in  Kohler's  Zeitschrift  fiir  vergleichende  Rechtsvnssenschnft,  vol.  8. 

*  The  principal  theories  of  this  scholar,  explained  in  his  manifold  publications, 
are  summed  up  in  his  essaj^s,  De  Islam  (published  in  the  Dutch  review  De  Gids, 
1886),  Le  Droit  Musulman  in  Revue  de  I'Histoire  des  Religions,  vol.  .37  (1897). 

Basing  on  these  methodical  and  historical  principles,  the  Dutch  scholar  Th. 
W.  Juynboll  has  given  the  most  valuable  scientific  system  of  Muhammadan  law  in 
his  work  Handleiding  tot  de  Kennis  van  de  Mohammedaansche  Wet  (Leiden,  1903). 


508  MOHAMMEDISM 

whole  historical  Islam  —  all  this  is  founded  on  the  normative  power 
of  the  consensus. 

So  the  whole  prevailing  theory  and  practice  must  trace  its  legit- 
imacy, even  its  legality,  back  to  this.  If  we  had  only  the  text  of  the 
Koran,  the  texts  of  the  Sunna,  and  the  results  of  deductive  reason- 
ing, with  these  three  approved  "roots"  for  the  construction  of  law, 
we  should  have  many  riddles  before  us  in  considering  the  real  relig- 
ious life  in  Islam.  How,  for  instance,  could  the  worship  of  saints 
spread  all  over  Islamic  territory,  with  all  the  manifestations  of 
anthropolatry  attaching  to  it,  and  be  brought  into  harmony  with  the 
uncouthly  inflexible  monotheistic  theory  on  which  the  dogmatic  of 
Islam  is  based?  Are  there  not  dozens  of  passages  in  the  Koran  and 
sayings  in  the  Sunna  to  justify  the  fighting  motto  of  the  Wahhabites 
and  of  precedent  puritans,  who,  in  all  these  superstitions  covered 
under  the  mask  of  piety,  see  only  polytheism  and  mere  paganism, 
by  which  the  purity  of  the  creed  is  dimmed  and  falsified?  This  would 
certainly  be  the  case,  if  the  great  principle  of  Idjma'  were  not  there 
to  justify  such  outgrowths  as  being  in  accordance  with  righteous 
Islam,  in  spite  of  the  contrast  they  form  to  the  real  doctrine  of  that 
religion.  The  general  feeling  of  the  believers  has  adopted  all  this,  as 
well  as  many  other  strange  things,  so  that  there  can  be  no  "failing." 

Without  the  consideration  of  this  great  principle  orthodox  Islam, 
as  it  is,  would  be  quite  incomprehensible  to  us,  as  according  to  the 
ideas  of  Islamic  theology,  orthodoxy  consists  in  being  in  complete 
congruity  with  the  consensus.  One  becomes  a  heretic  by  merely 
contradicting  the  Consensus  Doctorum  Ecclesiae. 

You  will  often  have  to  deal  in  the  history  of  Islam  with  the  para- 
dox that  a  reactionary  doctrine  corresponds  to  the  traditional  ones 
and  still  does  not  pass  for  orthodox.  Take,  for  instance,  the  Wah- 
habite  movement.  It  is  a  protest  against  anti-Islamic  innovations;  no 
one  can  deny  that  its  puritanism  agrees  more  nearly  with  the  funda- 
mental doctrines  of  Islam  than  the  abominations  against  which  it 
fought.  But  nevertheless  it  is  heterodox.  It  rebelled  against  develop- 
ments which  in  the  course  of  the  centuries  were  admitted  and  sanc- 
tioned by  the  consensus,  and  for  that  very  reason  had  the  only  legiti- 
mate claim  to  pass  for  the  correct  form  of  Islam,  "  nam  diuturni  mores 
consensu  utentium  comprobati  legem  imitantur"  (Institut.  i,  ii,  9). 


But  although,  particularly  in  the  Sunnitic  quarters  of  Islam,  this 
collective,  or,  as  it  has  been  called,  catholic  trait  has  manifested  it- 
self, it  must  be  remarked,  on  the  other  hand,  that  just  as  much  feel- 
ing has  been  shown  for  the  individual  peculiarities  of  the  single  parts 
of  that  wide  territory  over  which  the  creed  of  Islam  has  spread. 


PROGRESS   OF   ISLAMIC  SCIENCE  509 

This  is  shown  most  plainly  in  the  attitude  to  the  old  pre-Islamic 
institutions  of  religion  and  law.  Even  the  canonical  Islamic  sys- 
tem has  assimilated  many  elements  from  the  native  systems  of  the 
conquered  countries.  Many  a  principle  of  method,  as  well  as  many  a 
detail  of  Islamic  law,  has  been  borrowed  from  the  Roman  law,  as  we 
have  just  observed,  and  hence  has  become  canonical  law  in  Islam. 

Yet  it  is  not  this  that  I  wish  to  develop  here  further,  but  rather 
a  manifestation  of  provincial  individuality  in  the  Muhammadan 
practice,  still  perceptible  in  our  days.  In  complete  independence  of 
the  main  stream  of  canonical  law  Islam  tolerates  in  many  chapters 
of  civil  and  criminal  law  native  law-customs,  which  are  often  directly 
opposed  to  the  theologically  fixed  law.  Therein  the  ethnographical 
individualities  put  themselves  forth  with^their  national  traditions. 
These  provincial  customs  are  called  the  'Addt.  As  Arabic  philology 
attaches  more  importance  now  to  scientific  inquiry  into  popular 
dialects  besides  the  classical  language  than  it  did  four  decades  ago, 
in  like  manner  the  'Adat  have  been  made  a  subject  for  collection  and 
historical  consideration  within  the  period  whose  scientific  progress 
forms  the  topic  of  this  paper.  But  for  our  knowledge  of  them,  our 
information  about  living  institutions  would  be  utterly  deficient. 

And  as  there  is  no  observation  more  fascinating  in  the  history  of 
the  human  mind  than  that  of  the  close  tie  uniting  the  present  state 
of  nations  with  the  traditions  of  their  past,  notwithstanding  all  the 
historical  changes  undergone  by  them,  in  like  manner  there  lies, 
in  this  kind  of  facts,  an  elevating  perception  that  traditions  which 
have  lasted  for  thousands  of  years  are  reflected  in  these  'Adat,  over 
which  the  flood  of  history  has  been  flowing,  without  sweeping  them 
away.  Even  Islam,  that  overwhelming  power,  which,  sword  in  hand, 
stormed  the  nations,  could  not  destroy  them. 

In  the  customary  laws  of  the  present  Muslim  Kabyles  of  Northern 
Africa  you  will  find  characteristic  elements  in  disharmony  with  legal 
Islam,  which  are  identical  with  or  at  least  kin  to  the  customs  and  laws 
mentioned  in  antiquity  in  connection  with  the  Numidians  and  Mauri- 
tanians.  Those  people  are  quite  aware  of  their  opposition  to  Islamic 
ordinances,  which  extends  even  to  Koranic  commands  as  if  the  Koran 
had  not  been  revealed  to  them  at  all.  According  to  the  Kabyle 
legislation  the  feminine  sex  is  entirely  excluded  from  the  capability 
of  partaking  in  any  inheritance;  women  are  deprived  of  all  rights  as 
regards  private  law.  As  to  the  civil  law  of  the  Koran  these  Kabyles 
opine  that  its  prescriptions  were  made  for  a  country  quite  different 
from  theirs,  for  a  nation  that  had  a  different  manner  of  life  from  their 
own.^  But  nevertheless  they  are  partakers  in  the  community  of 
Islam  and  look  for  the  Paradise  of  Believers. 

We  can  therefore  welcome  as  one  of  the  most  gratifying  advances  in 

^  Cf.  ZZ)M(?,  vol.  41,p.  38ff. 


510  MOHAMMEDISM 

the  knowledge  of  Islam,  that  more  and  more  attention  has  been  paid 
to  the  'Adat  of  the  separate  Muhammadan  peoples.  Chiefly  in  two 
geographical  territories  much  fertile  work  has  been  done.  I  have  just 
mentioned  the  population  of  Northwest  Africa,  being  a  territory 
where  the  French  colonial  administration  has  pursued  the  collection 
of  the  'Addt  with  great  zeal.  The  three  volumes  by  Hanoteau  and 
Letourneux,  La  Kabylie  et  les  coutumes  Kabyles  (Paris,  1872-73), 
is  a  classical  work  of  codification  of  Berber  custom-law.  As  regards 
special  studies,  still  more  extensive  is  what  Dutch  scholars  have 
done  in  the  Indian  insular  colonies  of  their  beautiful  fatherland,  for 
the  knowledge  of  the  'Adat  among  their  Muhammadan  subjects. 
The  description  of  the  religious  life  and  social  customs  of  the  Atjehs 
(1893)  and  of  the  Gajo  (1903),  given  to  us  by  Snouck  Hurgronje  in 
two  of  his  most  instructive  books, ^  offer  undoubtedly  the  most 
exact  treatise  on  the  'Adat  in  countries  whose  formal  law  is  Islam. 
The  scientific  reviews  dedicated  to  the  investigation  of  the  philology, 
geography,  and  ethnography  of  Dutch  India  ^  are  rich  in  fine  and 
thorough  investigations  into  these  conditions.  I  can  well  mark 
these  important  researches  and  gatherings  as  a  welcome  advance  in 
our  modern  scientific  study  of  Islam,  though  they  have  mostly  kept 
themselves  rather  in  the  frame  of  ethnography. 

Equally  rich  in  stimulating  elements  are  the  data  of  provincial 
peculiarities  with  which  we  meet  in  matters  of  creed  and  religious 
exercise.  Here  is  a  rich  crop  for  the  chapter  of  ethno-psychology 
and  religious  history  which  can  be  headed  Survivals,  to  use  a  term 
brought  into  vogue  by  Edward  B.  Tylor.  We  have  examples  of  direct 
remains  of  pagan  worship  in  tribes,  outwardly  submitted  to  Islam. 
Al-Bekri,  an  Arabic  geographical  author  of  the  eleventh  century 
(died  1094),  transmits  to  us  in  this  relationship  remarkable  facts 
about  North  African  Islam.  In  his  time  many  a  Berber  tribe  made 
offerings  to  Roman  monuments,  prayed  to  them  for  the  recovery  of 
their  sick,  and  felt  grateful  to  them  for  the  prosperity  of  their 
belongings.^  This  rather  indefinite  statement  is  completed  by  state- 
ments from  the  same  author  quoted  by  Yakiit,  that  three  days' 
journey  from  Waddan  in  the  territory  of  Fezzan,  south  of  Tripolis,  — 
now  a  place  inhabited  by  an  enormous  number  of  Shurafa,*  that  is, 

*  Snouck  Hurgronje,  De  Atjihers  (Batavia-Leiden,  1893-94),  2  vols.  —  Het 
Gajoland  en  Zijne  bewoners  (Batavia,  1903). 

*  Let  us  mention  in  the  first  place  the  volumes  of  Bijdragen  tot  de  Taal-Land-en 
Volkenkunde  van  Nederlandsch-Indie,  published  by^  the  Royal  Institution  for 
Dutch-Indian  Studies.  For  special  chapters  on  the  'Adat  of  Java  and  Madura  see 
Van  den  Berg,  in  the  vol.  1892,  pp.  454-512,  and  1897,  pp.  83-181 .  In  the  first  note 
of  the  former  paper  some  previous  literature  on  the  'Adat  is  mentioned.  J.  A. 
Nederburgh  began  in  1896  to  publish  in  Batavia  a  periodical  Wet  en  'AdAt;  but 
it  was  only  carried  on  till  1898,  in  all,  three  issues. 

'  Notices  et  Extraits  des  Manuscrits  de  la  Btbliotheque  Nationale,  xii,  p.  458. 

*  Cf.  Rohlfs,  Kufra  (Leipzig,  1881),  p.  147 ff.  176;  Mohammed  b.  Othman  el- 
Hachaichi,  Voyage  au  pays  des  Senotissia  (translated  by  Serres  and  Laaram,  Paris, 
1903),  p.  134  ff. 


PROGRESS  OF   ISLAMIC  SCIENCE  511 

pretending  descendants  of  the  Prophet's  family,  —  there  was  standing 
on  a  hill  a  stone  idol  called  Krza  (the  vowel  between  r  and  z  is  un- 
certain). The  neighboring  Berber  Kabyles  made  pilgrimages  to  this 
idol,  brought  it  sacrifices,  and  held  rogation  ceremonies  in  time  of 
drought.  I  am  no  friend  of  mere  hypotheses  and  bold  identifica- 
tions of  proper  names.  Nevertheless,  in  mentioning  this  African  idol, 
I  cannot  help  throwing  out  the  query  whether  we  have  not  before  us 
in  this  Krza  the  remainder  of  the  name  Gurzil,  mentioned  by  Corippus 
in  his  Joannide  (ii,  vv.  109-110,  405;  iv,  vv.  669,  1139),  as  the  name 
of  an  old  Berber  idol,  identified  with  Jupiter  Ammon,  and  brought 
into  connection  with  an  oracle. 

At  the  same  time  a  Berber  tribe  in  the  Atlas  Mountains  is  said, 
by  the  same  Al-Bekri,  to  have  worshiped  a  ram.^  And  even  in  the 
fifteenth  century  Leo  Africanus  can  tell  us  about  customs  of  North 
African  Berbers,  which  he  explains  as  remains  of  ancient  African 
paganism  which  had  not  disappeared  in  the  times  of  Islam.  ^  The 
worship  of  the  ram  in  Muhammadan  North  Africa  can  be  brought  into 
analogy  with  a  parallel  from  quite  the  opposite  end  of  the  territory  of 
Islam.  Al-Dimishki,  a  cosmographic  writer  of  the  thirteenth  century 
(died  1256),  informs  us  regarding  the  province  of  Ghilan,  North- 
western Persia,  along  the  shores  of  the  Caspian  Sea,  that  the  Muham- 
madans  of  that  country  labored  under  materialistic  ideas  about  the 
Deity.  They  went  so  far  as  to  conceive  of  God  as  riding  at  midday 
on  a  white  ass.  And  in  fact  they  bestowed  great  honors  on  asses 
of  that  color.'  Indefinite  as  this  remark  of  the  Arabic  author  may 
be,  at  any  rate  it  serves  us  as  testimony  of  well-pronounced  animal- 
worship  among  a  population  who  no  doubt  esteemed  themselves 
orthodox  adherents  of  Islamic  faith.  Perhaps  there  is  some  relation 
between  this  superstitious  cult  of  a  white  ass  and  the  ideas  about 
the  mythological  Kharem  ashavanem  (probably  a  white  ass)  of  the 
Zarathustrians  (Bundahish,  ch.  xix). 

We  have  thus  seen  solid  pagan  remains  in  the  midst  of  Muhammadan 
populations.  But  such  religious  survivals  are  not  attested  of  former 
times  only.  In  different  parts  of  the  Islamic  world  paganism,  with 
uncultivated  tribes,  in  its  more  or  less  original  forms,  has  outlasted 
the  ruling  influence  of  Islam,  although  that  was  established  centuries 
ago.  A  remarkable  instance  in  the  religious  conditions  of  Muham- 
madan Madagascar  is  given  in  the  description  supplied  by  the  French 
Consul,  M.  Gabriel  Ferrand,  who  has  with  great  industry  and  zeal 
revealed  to  us  Malagasy  philology  and  ethnography.  Although  the 
Sakalava  people  have  adhered  to  Islam  for  three  centuries,  "they 
have  adopted  Islam  without  bringing  any  notable  change  to  their 

*  Bekri,  Description  de  VAfrique  septentrionale  (ed.  de  Slane,  Alger,  1857),  p. 
161,4. 

^  Descriptio  Africae  (ed.  Antwerpen),  p.  112. 

'  Dimischki,  Cosmographie  ed,  Mehren  (St.  Petersburg,  1866),  p.  226. 


512  MOHAMMEDISM 

former  customs  and  manners."  Allah  and  the  Prophet  take  a  promi- 
nent place  in  their  religious  ceremonies,  yet  still  inferior  to  Zana- 
hatry  and  Angatra,  their  national  divinities.  Their  life  continues  to 
be  ruled  by  the  observation  of  their  tabu  views,  called  fady  in  their 
language,  and  their  magicians  pursue  undisturbed  the  pagan  cus- 
toms of  their  ancestors,  with  the  only  difference  that  this  sorcery  is 
practiced  under  the  standard  of  Allah  akhar.^ 

This  sort  of  paganism  surviving  under  the  shield  of  a  Muhammadan 
exterior  is  one  of  the  most  decisive  factors  in  the  individual  formation 
of  provincial  Islam,  and  has  resisted  all  exertions  of  clerical  influence 
enforcing  itself  from  abroad.  The  following  fact,  observed  in  the 
Caucasian  Ingush  tribe,  can  be  considered  as  typical  for  the  coating 
of  pagan  reminiscences  with  the  superficial  forms  of  Islam.  We 
choose  our  examples  with  intention  from  parts  of  the  Muhammadan 
world  separated  from  each  other  by  great  distances.  The  Ingush  are 
Muhammadans  in  name ;  but  as  with  most  peoples  inhabiting  moun- 
tains, their  ancient  paganism  has  conserved  itself  under  their  exte- 
rior Islam.  Hahn,  who  is  best  acquainted  with  the  customs  of  these 
populations,  reports  that  the  worship  of  the  idol  Gushmile  is  almost 
universal  among  them  and  explains  how  this  worship  can  agree  very 
well  with  that  of  Allah.  The  Muhammadan  Galgai  (in  the  Caucasus) 
pray  only  by  night  in  front  of  quadrangular  stone  columns  of  the 
height  of  a  man,  erected  on  hills  and  in  cemeteries.  Remarkable  is 
the  worship  of  skeletons  in  an  ossuary  near  Nasran.  The  skeletons  are 
said  to  come  from  their  Narthes  (ancestors)  and  to  have  begun  to 
decay  only  since  the  arrival  of  the  Russians.  These  objects  of 
worship  are  covered  with  green  shawls  from  Mekka.^  This  green  shawl 
from  Mekka,  with  which  the  objects  and  forms  of  the  old  traditional 
worship  are  covered,  interprets  very  fittingly  the  ethno-psychological 
process  involved  in  the  Islamification  of  such  populations.  Green  is 
the  Prophet's  color.  Under  the  "green  shawl "  the  old  national  relig- 
ious 'Addt  continue  to  live. 

Even  in  places  where  the  Islamic  ingredients  have  opposed  the 
popular  creed  with  greater  force,  this  national  element  lends  an 
individual  living  color,  reflecting  the  special  character  of  Islam  in  the 
different  provinces  to  which  it  extends,  and  rendering  prominent  its 
locally  defined  peculiarities. 

The  minute  observation  of  such  facts,  on  the  other  hand,  has  also 
been  useful  in  reconstructing  elements  of  ethnical  religions,  which 
were  extinct  long  ago  in  their  original  form,  but  have  been  pre- 
served under  a  superficial  Muhammadan  veil  up  to  the  present  day. 
Following  this  method  Samuel  Ives  Curtiss,  the  distinguished  professor 

*  Les  Musulmans  h  Madagascar  et  aux  iles  Comores,  in  (Paris,  1902),  p.  80  ff. 
'  Hahn,  Bei  den  Pschaven,  Chevsuren,  Kisten  und  Inguschen,  in  Beilage  no.  101, 
Miinchener  Allgem.  Zeitung,  1898. 


PROGRESS   OF   ISLAMIC  SCIENCE  513 

of  Chicago,  was  able  to  construct  from  the  present  religious  customs 
of  the  Bedawin  in  Syria,  Palestine,  and  the  Sinai  Peninsula  the 
primitive  rites  of  Semitic  religion  in  a  book  ^  which  fully  met  the 
approbation  of  learned  circles  on  both  sides  of  the  ocean.  Further 
researches  following  the  way  he  took  will,  no  doubt,  add  to  his  accu- 
mulation of  evidence. 

Some  remains  of  ancient  libation  customs  have,  for  instance,  been 
preserved  in  a  communication  drawn  from  the  book  of  the  late 
Egyptian  Minister  'Alt  Bdshd  Mubarak,  which  is  most  ample  in  this 
respect.^  In  the  neighborhood  of  Kastal,  in  the  peninsula  of  Sinai, 
is  the  tomb  of  a  Shaikh  Marzuk  al-Kifafi,  lying  on  the  Egyptian  pil- 
grims' road.  When  passing  this  grave,  pilgrims  are  wont  to  break 
glasses  filled  with  rosewater,  prepared  beforehand  in  Cairo  for  that 
purpose,  and  to  pour  the  odorous  contents  over  the  grave-hill  of  the 
quite  unknown  shaikh.  The  ancient  Semitic  ceremony  of  libation  is 
here  extended  to  an  unknown  personage  transformed  into  an  Islamic 
saint. 

The  festival-cycle  of  universal  Islam,  with  its  movable  lunary  cal- 
endar, has  no  connection  at  all  with  the  life  of  nature.  The  feasts 
are  not  spring  or  autumn  feasts;  they  are  bound  to  days  in  the 
calendar  which  are  subject  to  migration  through  all  seasons.  This 
want  is  supplied  in  the  popular  religious  exercises  by  adopting  old 
pre-Islamic  feasts  and  giving  them  an  Islamic  stamp.  The  Nile, 
"God's  gift,"  plays,  of  course,  no  role  in  the  canonical  books  of 
Islam,  But  in  the  popular  religious  customs  of  Egyptian  Islam 
nearly  the  same  reverence  is  rendered  to  it  as  in  the  land  of  the  pa- 
gan Pharaohs,  with  the  difference  that  everything  is  turned  Islamic 
and  interpreted  in  that  sense.  And  likewise  in  the  practice  of  religious 
customs  in  Islamic  Egypt,  as  well  as  in  many  other  countries,  pre- 
Islamic  customs  and  pagan  religious  conceptions  have  been  adapted 
and  blended  with  Islamic  sense,  apart  from  the  official  worship,  in  dif- 
ferent circles.  The  pagan  worship  of  trees,  stones,  wells,  and  demons 
has  been  preserved;  so  within  the  official  religious  worship  numerous 
superstitious  customs  of  the  national  pre-Islamic  traditions  have 
survived.  There  is  no  department  in  religious  life  where  such  tradi- 
tions present  themselves  in  a  more  original  way  than  the  rites  of 
rogation  for  rain  (istiskd),  which  have  shown  themselves  to  be  real 
depositories  of  pagan  witchcraft. 

You  will  not  be  astonished  at  the  toleration  of  much  pagan  cus- 
tom within  official  Islam,  if  you  consider  that  in  the  holiest  spot  of 
Islam,   "God's  House"  in  Mekka,    the   fetishism  exercised  at  it 

•  Primitive  Semitic  Religion  of  To-day :  a  Record  of  Researches,  Discoveries,  and 
Studies  in  Syria,  Palestine,  and  the  Sinaitic  Peninsula.  (New  York,  1902.)  German 
translation:  Ursemitische  Religion  im  Volkslehen  des  heutigen  Orients,  with  a 
Preface  by  Professor  Graf  W.  Baudissin  (Leipzig,  1903). 

^  Al-Khitat  al-djadida.  Cairo,  1304-06  (1886-88),  20  volumes.  Cf.  xiri,  p.  20. 


514  MOHAMMEDISM 

with  the  "  Black  Stone,"  the  formahties  of  the  holy  pilgrimage  are 
all  sacra  taken  over  by  Muhammad  himself  from  the  ancient  Arabian 
religion,  over  which  the  veil  of  monotheism  has  been  spread. 

I  esteem  the  cultivation  of  this  realm  of  research  and  the  insight 
obtained  from  it  into  the  individualism,  stamped  differently  accord- 
ing to  provinces  upon  the  catholic  Islam,  to  be  one  of  the  most 
valuable  acquisitions  of  the  new  Islamic  studies.  We  are  thus  intro- 
duced to  the  knowledge  of  living  Islam  and  to  the  historical  and 
ethnographical  factors  of  its  manifestations  of  life.  We  have  passed 
beyond  Reland's  theoretical  Islam,  "uti  docetur  in  templis  et  scholia 
Mohammedicis,"  with  a  mighty  step. 

A  very  peculiar  field  of  remainders  turned  with  an  Islamic  sense 
is  the  worshi'p  of  saints.  In  the  forms  of  this  manifestation  of  relig- 
ious life,  the  remains  of  the  old  times  have  taken  shelter  unknow- 
ingly. As  in  other  world-religions,  the  Muhammadan  saints  also 
are  often  transformed  successors  of  ancient  objects  of  worship.  In 
the  local  worship  of  saints,  as  we  just  remarked  of  the  tomb  of 
Shaikh  Marzuk,  near  Kastal,  remains  of  pre-Islamic  rites  are  mostly 
preserved. 

Islam  has  taken  hold  even  of  Buddhist  sanctuaries,  in  countries 
formerly  inhabited  by  followers  of  Buddha,  and  interpreted  them 
to  suit  its  own  sense.  Buddha's  footsteps  in  Ceylon  have  easily 
become  the  footsteps  of  'Ali;  a  jug  of  Buddha's  venerated  in  Kanda- 
har has  been  transferred  to  Muhammad.  Grenard,  companion  to 
the  unfortunate  explorer  Dutreuil  de  Rhins  in  his  East  Turkestan 
travels  and  elaborator  of  their  results,  could  say  with  right,  about 
the  Muhammadan  holy  places  of  pilgrimage  in  ancient  Buddhist 
territory,  that  the  holy  personages  worshiped  there  are  mostly 
un  avatar  Musulman  de  Buddha}  This  tenacity  of  local  cults  on 
formerly  Buddhistic  ground  occupied  by  Muslims  has  been  since 
confirmed  on  a  larger  scale  by  my  fellow  countryman  Dr.  M.  A. 
Stein,  in  his  wonderful  explorations  in  Chinese  Turkestan. ^ 

It  results  from  all  this  that  it  is  especially  in  dealing  with  the 
local  and  provincial  worship  of  saints  that  we  can  obtain  the  inform- 
ation and  collect  the  materials  which  we  have  pointed  out  in  the 
precedent  notices  as  objects  of  study  in  religious  history.  We  do  not 
possess  a  Legenda  aurea  of  Islam,  nor  do  Bollandists  of  Islam  come  to 
our  help,  though  the  sphere  of  this  religion  would  be  extremely  rich 
in  materials  for  such  collections.^  We  have  to  gather  our  materials 
ourselves  with  great  pains  from  a  wide  branching  original  literature 
and  from  the  information  furnished  by  observant  travelers.  Large 
tracts  of  Islam  are  not  so  well  worked  for  such  a  crop  as  we  might 

'  Mission  scientifuiue  dans  la  Haute-Asie  (1890-95),  in,  p.  46. 
»  Sand-buried  Ruins  of  Khotan  (London,  1904),  pp.  180  ff.;  226;  329. 
'  C.  Trumelet,  Les  Saints  de  VIslam,  Lr.gendes  hagiologiques  et  croyances  alger- 
iennes.  — Les  Saints  du  Tell  (Paris,  1881). 


PROGRESS   OF   ISLAMIC  SCIENCE  515 

expect  from  the  means  and  the  easy  opportunities  offering  themselves 
to  explorers  just  there.  I  think  chiefly  of  India  here.  Much  prepar- 
atory work  is  done  for  Egypt,  where  the  learned  statesman  already 
mentioned  has  furnished  most  valuable  materials  in  his  topographical 
description  of  the  country.  Also  for  Palestine  and  Syria  a  consid- 
erable amount  of  careful  work  has  been  done  in  this  respect  by  the 
cooperators  of  the  Exploration  Funds.  And  extremely  useful  are 
the  contributions  being  continually  presented  of  late  by  the  Algerian 
school/  following  the  guidance  of  Ren6  Basset,  in  this  chapter  of 
individual  formations  in  Maghrebine  Islam,  on  the  relationship  of 
the  special  worship  of  saints  in  this  quarter  of  Islam  to  the  old 
traditions  of  its  population. 

VI 

In  our  flying  review  of  the  progress  of  Islamic  science,  we 
could  not,  within  the  space  we  can  justly  claim  for  it  here,  possibly 
discuss  all  the  questions  whose  examination  marks  the  progress 
which  this  science  has  taken  in  the  later  times.  Especially  we  must 
regret  that  we  could  not  devote  a  special  chapter  to  that  ample 
increase  which  the  knowledge  of  Muhammadan  sects  has  gained 
lately.  In  this  respect  we  should  have  to  mention  here  among  many 
others  in  the  first  place  the  exhaustive  researches  of  Edward  G. 
Browne  on  the  Babi  movement  in  Persia.^ 

It  could  not  be  our  intention  to  exhaust  the  task  set  before  us  in 
all  its  details  and  to  enter  into  all  the  starting-points  which  would 
present  themselves  to  us  in  exposing  our  theme.  We  can  point  out 
only  the  most  prominent  points  of  view  from  which  this  progress  has 
been  carried  out. 

What  I  intended  to  show  you  and  that  of  which  I  desired  to  con- 
vince you  is  chiefly  this:  that  the  undeniable  intrinsic  progress  of 
Islamic  studies  has  manifested  itself  in  the  following  ways  in  the  last 
decades : 

(1)  The  deeper  knowledge  of  ancient  Islam  and  of  its  constitutive 
factors; 

(2)  the   methodical   treatment   of  the   documents   reflecting   the 
development  of  Islam; 

(3)  the  truer  insight  into  the  character  of  the  institutions  and 
laws  of  Islam; 

^  We  will  point  out  here  in  this  order  of  studies  the  remarkable  essay  of  Doutt^, 
Notes  sur  V I  slam  maghribin.  Les  Marabouts  (Paris,  1900),  and  other  contribu- 
tions of  this  scholar. 

*  A  Traveller's  Narrative  written  to  illustrate  the  episode  of  the  Bdb  (two  vols.), 
Cambridge,  1891 ;  The  Tdrikh-i-jadtd,  or  New  History  of  ...  the  Bdb:  Cambridge, 
1893,  and  many  contributions  of  the  same  scholar  on  Babl  history  and  literature 
in  the  Journal  of  the  Royal  Asiatic  Society.  —  Cf .  also  the  valuable  publications  of 
the  Russian  scholar  A.  H.  Toumansky  on  the  religious  books  Of  the  sect. 


516  MOHAMMEDISM 

(4)  the  increasing  estimation  of  individual  formations  within  uni- 
versal Islam;  and 

(5)  the  consideration  of  the  after-effects  of  pre-Islamic  traditions 
upon  those  popular  and  individual  formations. 


VII 

Our  review  would  be  still  more  defective  if  we  did  not  add  one 
more  remark  in  appreciation  of  a  means  which  has  helped  and  still 
helps  us  in  a  valuable  way  to  produce  significant  progress  in  our 
understanding  of  Islam.  I  have  in  mind  the  important  documents 
of  Islamic  religious  science  which  are  within  our  reach  through  the 
labors  of  printers  in  the  Orient  itself.  He  who  would  in  the  sixth 
decade  of  the  past  century  study,  for  instance,  one  of  the  most 
prominent  monuments  of  the  religious  spirit  of  Islam,  the  Vivifica- 
tion  of  Sciences,  by  Al-Ghazali,  or  other  important  works  of  this 
author,  had  to  seek  access  to  the  manuscripts  of  more  or  less  access- 
ible libraries.  Among  the  great  collections  of  traditions,  others  than 
Bukhari  were  mostly  known  only  by  names  or  from  quotations.  Only 
a  few  selected  men  had  admittance  to  these  others,  no  less  import- 
ant. It  was  seldom  that  an  Occidental  scholar  got  sight  of  the 
mass  of  commentaries,  in  which  an  inappreciable  philological 
material,  a  valuable  apparatus  for  text-critical  and  exegetical  pur- 
poses is  accumulated,  which  is  so  precious  in  the  very  field  of  tradi- 
tions. The  oldest  documents  of  the  literature  of  legal  institutions 
were  thought  lost.  The  works  of  the  theological  scholastics,  whence 
we  take  our  information  about  the  nature  and  history  of  the  dogmas 
of  Islam,  were  only  known  to  a  defective  extent.  All  this  has  been 
done  away  with  for  nearly  three  decades  and  a  half,  by  printing  in 
Islamic  countries:  Turkey,  Egypt,  Northern  Africa,  India,  Persia. 
As  even  the  strongest  bulwark  of  ancient  Islam,  the  holy  city  of 
Mekka,  had  to  permit  telegraph  wires  to  enter  her  consecrated 
walls,  in  like  manner  she  has  become  one  of  the  centres  of  Islamic 
printing.  Those  publications  have  furnished  us  with  some  of  the  most 
important  primary  sources,  sometimes  in  numerous  bulky  volumes 
whose  publication  could  never  have  been  thought  of  in  Europe  or 
America.  And  even  that  the  most  capital  commentaries  of  the  Koran, 
for  example  the  great  exegetical  work  of  Tabari  in  thirty  parts  and 
the  "Keys  of  the  mystery"  of  the  great  dogmatic  authority,  Fakhr 
al-din  al-Razi,  in  eight  bulky  volumes,  have  become  accessible  to  our 
scholars,  is  due  to  the  activity  of  Oriental  typography. 

In  view  of  the  profit  gained  from  such  publications,  we  excuse 
willingly  the  confusing  and  for  our  eyes  most  painful  way  in  which 
the  Persian  and  Indian  lithographs  present  the  explanatory  glosses 
and  marginal  commentaries.    The  easy  possibility  of  studying  these 


PROGRESS   OF   ISLAMIC  SCIENCE  517 

works  nowadays,  and  rendering  them  profitable  for  our  researches 
has  been  a  strong  factor  in  the  progress  of  the  thorough  and  special 
knowledge  of  the  historical  development  of  the  doctrines  and  institu- 
tions of  Islam. 

That  the  scholars  of  the  Orient  may  also  profit  from  our  critical 
method,  that  they,  to  whom  we  owe  so  much  splendid  material, 
may,  by  intelligent  collaboration  in  our  endeavors,  contribute  to  the 
promotion  of  scientific  work  about  their  own  past  and  present,  must 
be  our  wish. 


THE   PROBLEMS  OF   MUHAMMADANISM 

BY   DUNCAN   BLACK   MACDONALD 

[Dtincan  Black  Macdonald,  Professor  of  Semitic  Languages,  Hartford  Theological 
Seminary,  Hartford,  Connecticut,  b.  1863,  Glasgow,  Scotland.  M.A.  Glas- 
gow, 1885;  B.D.iMd.  18S8;  Findlater  Scholar,  1887;  Black  Fellow,  1889-91; 
Post-Graduate,  University  of  BerUn,  1890-91, 1893.  Tutor,  University  of  Glas- 
gow, 1891-92;  Assistant  Minister  in  Parish  of  Strachur,  Scotland,  1892 ;  In- 
structor in  Semitic  Languages  in  Hartford  Theological  Seminary,  1892 ; 

Haskell  Lecturer,  University  of  Chicago,  1905-06.  Member  of  Royal  Asiatic 
Society,  American  Oriental  Society,  Society  of  Biblical  Literature.  Author  of 
Development  of  Muslim  Theology,  Jurisprudence  and  Constitutional  Theory. 
Muhammadan  editor  of  Hastings  Dictionary  of  Religion  and  Ethics;  advising 
editor  of  Hartford  Seminary  Concordance  to  Peshitta  Old  Testament,  being  prepared 
at  Urumia,  Persia.] 

In  the  great  disadvantage  which  must  accrue  to  me  —  high 
honor  though  it  may  also  be  —  in  following  the  most  eminent  living 
authority  on  the  civilization  of  Islam,  there  is  at  least  one  point  of 
help.  I  need  not  spend  time  now  in  demonstrating  that  Islam  is  an 
essential  unity  and  that  it  is  practically  impossible  to  separate  the 
history  of  its  religion  from  any  other  element  in  it.  The  whole  social 
complex  in  all  its  manifestations  is  religious  and  the  religion  of  Islam 
is  Islam  itself.  We  must  frankly  accept  this  and  state  our  subject, 
not  as  any  impossible  questioning  on  the  history  of  a  religion  in  our 
narrow  sense,  but  as  a  consideration  of  the  problems  as  to  the  history 
of  the  Muslim  organism  which  still  are  left  unsolved. 

Nor  need  I  lay  stress  on  the  comparative  impossibility  of  even 
this  subject  in  the  time  at  my  disposal.  Problems  are  still  thickly 
sown  in  the  path  of  the  investigator  of  Islam.  Not  simply  details 
are  undeveloped;  broad  trends  and  movements  remain  unconditioned 
and  inexplicable.  The  student  finds  an  abundance  of  concrete  facts, 
reputed  and  otherwise ;  but  working  hypotheses,  not  to  speak 
of  demonstrable  and  demonstrated  systems  by  which  these  facts 
may  be  criticised,  correlated,  and  explained,  are  conspicuously 
lacking.  Often  the  presumed  facts,  even,  fail  him.  They  are  still 
buried  in  Arabic  sources,  awaiting  the  special  and  rare  genius  which 
can  recognize  and  bring  them  forth.  Such  Arabic  sources,  too,  are 
so  far  only  in  part  accessible.  Of  those  which  survived  the  storm 
and  stress  of  the  Middle  Ages,  the  raids  and  conquests  of  Timour  and 
Chingiz  Khan,  the  unending  civil  conflicts  of  the  Muslim  states,  a 
comparatively  small  though  rapidly  increasing  portion  has  yet 
attained  to  print.  All  these  elements  in  research,  the  disinterring 
of  manuscripts,  the  presenting  of  them  to  the  world  of  scholars,  the 
examination  and  study  of  them  for  materials,  and  the  final  rearing 
of  the  lofty  historical  structure,  philosophizing  and  conditioning 


THE   PROBLEMS  OF   MUHAMMADANISM  519 

movements  and  rendering  intelligible  events  —  all  these  elements  and 
processes  are  still  backward  to  a  degree;  and  the  last,  it  may  safely 
be  said,  has  hardly  yet  begun.  Dr.  Goldziher,  if  he  will  permit  me  the 
reference,  has  given  us  volumes  full  of  the  richest  materials  for  such 
a  history,  opening  up  and  illuminating  dark  places  and  driving  shafts 
where  none  had  gone  before;  if  we  understand  the  development  of 
Muslim  jurisprudence,  the  system  of  Muslim  tradition,  and  the 
essential  outlines  of  Muslim  theological  strife,  it  is  due  to  him.  But 
we  still  look  vainly  to  him  for  that  great  history  of  Muslim  thought 
and  institutions  which  only  he  among  living  men  can  write. 

Permit  me,  then,  as  that  book  is  not  yet  before  us,  to  suggest  some 
few  of  the  darknesses  in  which  we  still  move.  Thereafter,  I  will  go  on 
to  state  what  is  for  me  the  central  problem  of  all  Islam,  a  problem 
absolutely  unsolved  and  seldom  fully  stated. 

Of  these  minor  obscurities,  some  of  the  thickest  cluster  round  the 
beginnings  and  pre-natal  conditions  of  Islam.  No  one  has  yet  made 
plain  to  us  the  different  ferments  working  then  in  heathen  Arabia. 
We  know  that  Christianity,  Judaism,  Zoroastrianism,  and  various 
phases  and  degrees  of  idolatry  were  there.  But  —  to  take  Christ- 
ianity —  we  do  not  know  with  any  precision  what  sects  and  forms 
of  Christian  thought  had  occupied  the  desert,  what  hold  they  had 
there  taken;  to  what  degree,  if  at  all,  they  were  genuinely  Arabic 
in  language  and  not  rather  mere  outliers  of  the  great  Syrian  church. 
To  take  Zoroastrianism,  it  is  only  of  late  that  its  hold  upon  southern 
Arabia  has  become  plain,  and  its  influence  on  the  thought  of  Muham- 
mad and  the  vocabulary  of  the  Qur'an  a  possible  hypothesis.  To  take 
primitive  Arabia  —  how  far  had  it  reached  the  conception  of  the 
one,  absolute  Allah,  the  Ilah,  God  Most  High?  In  a  word,  how  far 
was  Muhammad's  Allah  pre-Muhammadan  and  Muhammad  himself 
an  exhorter  on  things  known  but  despised?  And  when  we  come  thus 
to  Muhammad  himself,  the  problems  only  thicken.  Lives  of  him 
have  been  written  in  abundance,  greatly  imaginative  for  the  most 
part,  but  it  is  hardly  credible  that  we  have  not  as  yet  any  systematic 
theology  of  the  Qur'an,  only  investigations  of  specific  points.  Even 
a  modem  commentary  on  the  Qur'an  is  lacking,  largely,  perhaps, 
because  the  labors  of  the  Muslims  themselves  had  been  so  great  that 
they  are  not  yet  digested.  Its  most  multifarious  vocabulary,  too,  has 
been  attacked  at  many  points  and  wuth  many  theories,  but  an 
adequate  lexicon  of  it  remains  a  task  for  some  future  scholar.  It 
will  be  for  him  to  weigh  the  influence  of  Syriac,  Greek,  Ethiopic,  and 
Persian  words  and  ideas  on  the  language  and  thought  of  the  desert 
and  the  brain  and  imagination  of  Muhammad,  ever  greedy  of  the 
strange.  And  later,  too,  when  the  early  Muslim  church  was  striving 
with  the  contradictions  and  obscurities  of  that  Qur'an  —  knotted 
and  twisting  as  Muhammad's  own  mind  —  and  there  were  develop- 


520  MOHAMMEDISM 

ing  in  that  church  the  fundamental  conceptions  of  Islam,  we  know 
little  what  were  the  stranger  influences  upon  them  by  which  they, 
in  great  part  unconsciously,  were  swayed.  Murmurs  we  hear  of  John 
of  Damascus  and  his  school  of  theology,  the  Euchites  and  the 
Hesychasts,  the  pseudo-Dionysius  the  Areopagite  and  Stephen  bar 
Sudaili  drift  dimly  across  the  stage.  That  the  Christian  Xdyos  doc- 
trine is  at  work  is  certain,  and  Christian  conceptions  of  the  ascetic 
life,  in  spite  of  the  denunciations  of  Muhammad,  sway  Islam  as  they 
had  swayed  heathen  Arabia.  But  how  these  worked,  what  precise 
kinship  of  doctrine  they  produced,  what  was  the  extent  of  their 
influence,  what  the  place  of  that  influence  and  its  ttov  o-tC),  none  has 
yet  arisen  fully  and  clearly  to  answer  these  questions. 

And  why  it  has  been  so  is  simple  enough.  The  man  who  studies 
Arabic  and  its  literature  has  small  leisure  for  anything  else.  Yet 
Arabia,  through  all  this  period  through  which  we  have  run,  calls  for 
scholarship  of  the  most  varied  character.  He  who  would  study  the 
pre-Muslim  times  must  know  the  theology  of  the  early  Syrian 
church  in  all  its  welter  of  sects  and  heresies;  he  must  be  able  to 
detect  the  influence  of  Judaism  and  discern  its  precise  kind  and 
phase;  he  must  be  able  to  disentangle  from  the  old  Arabian  poems 
all  their  religious  references  and,  in  the  light  of  Semitic  heathenism 
and  more  narrowly  of  the  inscriptions  of  Syria  and  Arabia,  to  build 
them  into  a  mirror  for  their  time;  he  must  know  the  later  Zoroas- 
trianism,  its  theological  concepts  and  phrases;  the  Ethiopic  language 
and  the  theology  of  the  Abyssinian  church  must  be  simple  to  him; 
even  Egypt,  both  Coptic  and  Greek,  will  not  come  amiss  —  cannot 
be  wholly  neglected;  in  truth,  this  island  of  the  Arabs,  set  amid  its 
encircling  sands,  was  bare  to  the  most  mingled  winds  of  doctrine 
that  ever  beat  upon  a  land  and  people. 

Again,  he  who  would  know  Islam  itself  in  its  early  days  must 
advance  still  further  on  all  these  paths  and  be  able  to  trace  all  their 
influences.  Especially  he  must  have  absolute  control  of  the  theology 
of  the  Greek  church,  both  its  systematic  theology  and  the  mystic 
and  ascetic  life  which  was  its  soul.  Further,  another  constellation  of 
influences  will  rise  upon  his  horizon  and  lead  him  still  on  into  far 
lands.  India  and  Central  Asia,  through  ascetic  Buddhism,  will  begin 
to  work  on  Muslim  thought.  The  threads  of  life  run  out  now  to 
Balkh  and  Samarcand,  and  there  is  need  of  the  Sanscritist  and  the 
student  of  Indian  religions  to  play  the  interpreter. 

But  all  this,  it  is  plain,  no  one  brain  can  handle.  So  it  meets  well 
the  object  of  this  congress  to  emphasize  the  absolute  fact  that  little 
true  progress  can  now  be  made  in  the  study  of  the  Muslim  develop- 
ment without  collaboration.  None  can  be  an  Arabist  and  be  at  home 
in  all  these  fields.  Few  who  know  any  of  these  will  undertake  as 
well  to  learn  Arabic  and  penetrate  the  mystery  of  the  Muslim  life 


THE   PROBLEMS   OF   MUHAMMADANISM  521 

and  faith.  For  it  is  impossible  to  lay  too  great  weight  on  the  fact 
that  there  is  not  only  the  question  of  learning  a  most  complicateil 
and  endless  language,  but  that  the  even  slower  mastery  must  be 
reached  of  a  whole  habit  and  attitude  of  mind,  foreign  to  us  at  every 
turn,  though  from  time  to  time  misleading  us  with  the  ignis  fatuus 
of  a  deceptive  similarity  to  the  Old  Testament  and  its  ways. 

Again  another  field.  Since  the  Middle  Ages  Europe  has  known,  if 
it  has  not  always  acknowledged,  its  debt  to  Islam  as  intermediary  of 
the  philosophy  of  Greece.  That  general  fact  stands  firm,  however  it 
may  be  modified  and  limited.  Yet,  until  the  very  last  few  years, 
almost  nothing  has  been  done  to  trace  the  workings,  the  develop- 
ment, and  the  result  of  that  philosophy  in  Islam  itself.  In  the  current 
manuals  of  philosophy  and  in  the  encyclopedias  a  few  names  of 
so-called  Arabian  philosophers  have  found  a  place,  and  a  treatment 
marked  in  general  by  extreme  ignorance.  Every  one  has  heard  of 
Avicenna  and  Averroes,  but  who  has  traced  out  their  systems  and 
read  their  secrets?  A  mere  handful  of  Arabists  of  eccentric  tastes 
have  dabbled  in  such  lore.  At  the  present  time,  two  or  three  extremely 
well-equipped  young  men  are  at  serious  work  upon  it.  But,  in  general, 
philosophy  in  Islam  has  been  treated  either  by  those  who  were 
absolutely  ignorant  in  Arabic  or  painful  amateurs  in  philosophy. 
Yet  the  importance  of  the  subject,  both  for  the  history  of  civiliz- 
ation and  the  development  of  thought,  can  hardly  be  overestimated. 
It  is  already,  for  example,  becoming  evident  how  barren  philosophy, 
in  the  strict  sense,  was  in  Islam  itself;  how  little,  if  any,  change  or 
advance  was  made  from  the  Greek  positions.  But  it  is  also  becoming 
plain  how  completely  it  fell  to  Islam  to  carry,  in  this  strangely  help- 
less fashion,  the  torch  of  philosophic  thought  through  many  dark 
centuries  and  kindle  anew  in  Europe  the  idealistic  flame  which 
burns  even  to  our  day.  It  is  largely  due  to  the  elective  affinity  of  its 
intellectual  fervors  that  the  dead  school  of  Plotinus  won  the  field, 
and  that  the  simple  nominalism  of  our  times  was  delayed  for  so 
many  centuries.  Little  by  little,  too,  as  our  knowledge  spreads, 
we  are  discovering  strange  and  close  agreements,  even  to  phrases, 
between  Muslim  and  Christian  thinkers.  Threads  of  direct  con- 
nection are  being  found,  running  down  even  to  Pascal;  and  the 
general  trend  of  development  which  lead  to  pragmatism  and  the 
position  of  Mr.  William  James  has  its  parallel  in  the  theology  of 
Islam.  For  it  is  worth  noticing  that  the  independent  intellectual  life 
of  Islam  and  its  only  original  systems  are  to  be  found,  though  under 
philosophic  stimulus,  not  among  the  philosophers  themselves,  but 
among  the  theologians.  In  that  development,  paradoxically  enough, 
came  all  that  did  not  exist  already  in  Aristotle  and  the  neo-Pla- 
tonists.  Here,  then,  is  another  field  on  which  hardly  more  than  a 
beginning  has  been  made,  and  from  which  much  may  be  expected. 


522  MOHAMMEDISM 

Nor  is  the  problem  here  so  hard;  for  an  Arabist  may  easily  be  a 
student  of  philosophy  as  well.  Yet  the  demand  is  absolute  that  the 
worker  there  should  have  the  most  complete  knowledge  of  Aristotle 
and  Plotinus. 

Again  another  field  which  awaits  workers  is  that  of  folk-lore  and 
the  story.  The  names  can  be  counted  easily  on  one  hand  of  those 
folk-lorists  who  are  Orientalists  as  well.  Only  within  the  last  few  years 
have  the  folk-tales  of  Syria,  Egypt,  and  North  Africa  been  touched. 
On  the  Muslim  side  the  problem  of  the  Mediterranean  people  is  as  yet 
almost  unconsidered.  One  phase  of  it,  the  history  of  so  fundamental 
a  collection  as  The  Thousand  and  One  Nights,  with  its  many  folk- 
tales, is  still  in  great  darkness.  One  chapter  could  undoubtedly  be 
illumined  by  the  folk-lorists  of  Spain;  a  Spanish  period  in  its  history 
or  a  Spanish  version  is  a  large  possibility.  On  the  other  side,  what  hght, 
it  has  still  to  be  asked,  can  Oriental  learning  throw  on  so  unique 
a  survival  in  Europe  as  Aucassin  et  Nicolette  f  What  real  parallels 
do  the  romances  of  chivalry  show  to  the  stories  of  the  knights  of  the 
desert,  and  do  these  make  necessary  a  connection  of  origin?  This, 
it  will  be  seen,  opens  the  far  wider  question  of  the  intercourse  gen- 
erally between  Christendom  and  Islam  in  the  Middle  Ages,  one  on 
which  I  must  enter  immediately.  Only,  on  this  narrower  matter  of 
folk-lore,  the  necessity  of  cooperation  is  most  pressing,  and  its 
possibility  is  also  greatest.  Each  can  bring  to  the  great  heap  what  he 
has  gathered  in  his  own  field ;  the  assorting  will  prove  simple  enough. 
Gradually,  too,  each  will  learn  what  his  comrade  needs  and  be  able 
to  put  and  answer  the  questions  which  tell.  And  in  this  contact,  I 
cannot  refrain  from  mentioning  the  Bihliographie  arabe  of  Professor 
Chauvin  of  Liege;  what  is  being  done  in  it  for  folk-lore  can  surely 
be  done,  though  in  different  ways,  for  other  fields. 

Again  may  be  mentioned,  if  only  as  an  outstanding  specimen  of 
similar  questions  which  lie  scattered  through  Muslim  history,  the 
problem  of  the  origin  of  the  Fatimid  dynasty.  Did  that  dynasty 
really  draw  its  blood  from  Ali  and  Fatima,  the  daughter  of  the 
Prophet,  or  was  their  claim  the  most  gigantic  fraud  in  history? 
Further,  the  question  spreads  wider  and  goes  deeper  than  any  mere 
squabble  of  genealogists,  —  whether  that  dynasty  was  of  prophetic 
descent  or  not,  what  were  the  objects,  the  means,  the  ideals  of  the 
leaders  of  the  movement?  Was  it  a  vulgar  conspiracy  to  attain 
a  throne,  actuated  by  hatred  of  Islam  and  the  Arab  domination? 
Or  was  it  a  conspiracy  of  philosophers  and  philanthropists  to  bring 
about,  by  fostering  science  and  independent  thought  and  by  gradual 
weakening  and  overthrow  of  popular  religion  and  superstition,  a 
millennial  age  in  the  earth?  Were  its  leaders  soldiers  of  fortune,  or 
were  they  high  priests  of  science  gathering  under  their  guidance  and 
control  all  the  free  investigators  and  thinkers  of  the  time?  Was  it  as 


THE   PROBLEMS   OF   MUHAMMADANISM  523 

though  the  French  Revolution  had  been  matured  and  carried  through 
by  an  international  secret  association  of  philosophers  and  scientists, 
with  a  view  eventually  to  free  the  whole  world  from  all  other  control 
than  that  of  philosophy  and  science?  If  we  can  imagine  that  the 
Encyclopedists  had  not  simply  contributed  explosive  ideas  to  their 
time,  but  had  formed  a  vast  and  all  pervasive  society,  honeycombing 
the  ground  under  the  ancient  institutions  and  ideas,  we  shall  have 
a  close  analogy  to  this  hypothesis.  In  the  atmosphere  of  the  time, 
there  is  much  which  points  its  way,  and  the  evidence  for  it  is  steadily 
growing,  mad  as  it  may  seem.  We  have  learned,  for  example,  to 
recognize  in  the  Assassins,  who  sprang  from  the  Fatimids,  no  simple 
sect  of  stranglers,  or  Vehmgericht  of  peculiar  ability  and  vitality, 
but  also  a  fraternity  which,  in  spite  of  the  truth  of  its  name,  cherished 
experimental  science  and  investigation  in  its  mountain  fortresses. 
In  contact,  too,  with  both  Fatimids  and  Assassins  we  find  the  purely 
philosophic  fraternity  of  the  Sincere  Brethren  of  al-Basra,  which  was 
founded  to  promote  study  and  education  among  the  people.  Nor  is 
this  question  simply  of  Muslim  interest.  It  should  lie  close  to  every 
student  of  medieval  Europe.  For  it  may  be  asked,  what  part  in  this 
scheme  had  the  Templars  and  the  other  knightly  orders  so  freely 
accused  of  heresy  and  unbelief?  Were  they,  too,  late  pupils  of  the 
Fatimid  propagandists?  Did  the  tentacles  of  the  conspiracy  run,  in 
half-unconscious  growth,  out  into  Europe?  No  one  who  has  come 
to  recognize  how  closely  Europe  and  medieval  Islam  were  inter- 
dependent, in  strange,  underground  fashions,  will  venture  to  deny 
this  offhand.  The  question  is  there,  and  can  be  solved  only  by  com- 
bined studies.  It  would  be  hard  to  lay  too  great  stress  on  the  close 
inter-relation  of  these  fields  of  investigation  and  on  the  necessity  of 
united  and  cooperative  efforts. 

Another  penumbral  patch  in  our  knowledge  of  Islam,  which  may 
be  worth  a  bare  mention  because  it,  too,  emphasizes  the  necessity 
for  a  mutual  understanding  and  cooperation,  lies  in  the  history  of 
the  mystical  development.  Mysticism,  in  Islam,  ran  early  to  ascet- 
icism; somewhat  later  to  pantheism;  later  still  to  mingled  schools 
exhibiting  now  one,  now  the  other  side.  As  written  in  Arabic,  it 
tended  to  cling  to  the  earlier,  more  conservative  phase;  in  Persian 
and  Turkish  —  which  always  follows  Persian  —  it  drifted  off  in 
fanciful  dreams  of  the  identity  of  the  individual,  lost  in  the  One. 
But  it  is  comparatively  rare  to  find  a  Persianist  who  is  equally  read 
in  Arabic,  or  an  Arabist  who  can  recognize  at  once  the  source  of  a 
Persian  reference  or  idea.  As  a  consequence,  the  tendency  has  been 
for  these  schools  to  be  studied  by  different  men,  who  were  in  little 
touch  with  one  another's  labors,  and  their  presentation  of  the  differ- 
ent phases  has  tended  to  one-sidedness.  When  students  of  Islam, 
then,  in  its  different  languages  come  together;  when  they,  further, 


524  MOHAMMEDISM 

come  into  contact  with  the  students  of  Buddhism  and  of  the  mysticism 
of  India  generally;  when  the  connection  is  fully  made  with  the  other 
great  root  in  neo-Platonism  and  with  the  other  great  development 
in  the  idealistic,  quietistic,  and  pantheistic  schemes  of  Europe,  the 
way  will  be  paved  for  the  great  history  of  the  whole  development 
of  mystical  thought  and  aspiration,  which  is  perhaps  still  the  ob- 
scurest side  in  the  whole  history  of  religion. 

But  that  is  enough  of  such  details.  Gigantic  and  weighty  as  they 
are,  they  must  not  make  us  lose  sight  of  the  fact  that  at  the  very 
centre  of  Islam  there  lies  a  single  problem,  as  yet  untouched  but 
vital  for  our  view  and  for  our  understanding  of  that  faith.  To  put 
it  in  a  word,  it  is  the  fact  of  Islam  itself  —  how  we  are  to  understand 
it,  rationalize  it,  explain  it.  This  problem,  though  it  is  really  one, 
may  be  divided,  for  clearness  of  statement,  into  three.  (1)  How 
and  why  did  the  Muslim  civilization  arise?  (2)  Why  had  it  no 
permanence?  (3)  In  what  ways  and  to  what  extent  did  it  affect  the 
civilization  of  Christendom? 

One  of  these  questions  may,  perhaps,  seem  so  simple  as  to  be 
absurd;  another  may  seem  a  case  of  question-begging;  the  third  may 
seem  not  worth  asking.  The  Muslim  civilization  arose,  I  may  be 
told,  through  the  genius  and  victories  of  the  Arabs.  Again,  there  is 
no  question  of  lack  of  permanence;  it  is  there  now.  Lastly,  its 
pffect  on  the  civilization  of  Europe  is  well  known,  and  —  according 
to  the  answerer  —  was  infinitesimal  or  almost  infinite. 

Let  us  get  down  to  the  facts  in  the  case.  In  the  year  a.d.  622, 
Muhammad,  who  claimed  to  be  a  prophet  Uke  the  prophets  of  the 
Old  Testament,  migrated  through  fear  of  his  fellow  townsmen  from 
Mecca  to  Madina,  then  called  Yathrib,  and  there  founded  a  theo- 
cratic state  with  himself  as  absolute  head  and  interpreter  of  the  will 
of  God.  His  mission,  he  proclaimed,  was  to  reduce  the  world  to  the 
faith  of  Islam,  the  one  eternally  true  religion,  which  he  had  been 
sent  to  revive.  His  commission  gave  him  the  right  to  enforce  his  claim 
to  the  obedience  and  faith  of  all  the  peoples  of  the  ear£h.  At  the 
same  time  Arabia  was  more  or  less  in  a  state  of  ferment.  The  tribes 
were  restless;  the  time  had  come  for  them  to  burst  the  bands  of  the 
desert  and  make  one  of  their  great  raids  on  the  adjoining  lands. 
They  had  done  this  before,  time  and  again;  it  is  part  of  the  history 
of  Arabia.  On  this  occasion,  Muhammad  and  his  successors  drew 
them  together  with  infinite  labor  and  skill,  inspired  them  partly  with 
a  belief  in  themselves,  in  their  nation,  and  in  their  national  prophet 
and  his  faith,  partly  with  a  vision  of  an  immensity  of  booty,  and 
launched  them  on  the  world.  It  was  such  a  raid  as  Arabia  had  never 
known  before,  but  still  it  was  a  raid.  It  lasted  for  years;  it  swept  to 
Samarcand,  to  Spain,  to  the  passes  of  the  Taurus,  to  the  cataracts 
of  the  Nile.    It  changed  the  map  of  half  the  world,  and  when  the 


THE   PROBLEMS   OF  MUHAMMADANISM  525 

wave  ebbed  again,  the  old  civilization,  the  old  states  were  gone,  and 
another  civilization,  new  and  very  strange,  had  come  in  their  place. 
True,  the  leaders  of  the  raid  knew  what  they  would  have;  knew  that 
they  had  come  permanently  and  tried  to  hold  the  tribesmen  to  that 
knowledge.    But  that  could  not  be.    There  were  too  few  of  them, 
enough  to  conquer  but  not  enough  to  swamp  the  conquered  peoples. 
They  died  away  among  those  peoples  and  left  there  some  tinge  of 
Arab  blood;  or,  being  nomads  of  the  desert,  they  yearned  for  their 
sands  and  drifted  back  to  their  own  land,  or  whatever  other  North 
African  wastes  they  could  find.    But  how  was  the  civilization  which 
arose  —  the  Muslim  civilization  —  akin  to  them?    What  did  they 
give  to  it,  and  what  part  had  they  in  it?   For  one  thing,  they  gave 
to  it  their  language,  that  tongue  of  the  Arabs  which  may  well  compare 
in  dignity,  elaboration,  and  flexibility  with  that  of  the  Greeks. 
The  language  carried  with  it  certain  literary  forms  in  which  part,  at 
least,  of  the  Muslim  world  was  long  cramped.     Thanks  to  it,  for 
example,  the  Egyptians  forgot  the  lessons  of  the  Greek  poets  and 
came  to  believe  that  a  story  could  not  be  told  in  verse,  while  the 
Persians,  who  revived  their  own  language  again  to  literary  use,  had 
no  such  scruples.    To  the  Muslim  civilization  the  Arabs  gave  also 
the  great  conception  of  Islam  and  the  traditions  of  the  character  and 
teaching  of  Muhammad  as  contained  in  the  Qur'an  and  in  the  stories 
of  his  sayings  and  doings.    Certain  conceptions,  modes  of  life  and 
thought,  of  social  relationships  and  ideals  they  may  also  have  given, 
but  all  these,  too,  could  be  entered  perfectly  under  the  fact  of  Muham- 
mad and  his  teaching.  That  seems  to  have  been  the  sum  of  the  Arab 
contribution.  We  hear  often  of  Arabian  science,  of  Arabian  philosophy, 
of  Arabian  art.    There  was  never  any  Arabian  science,  philosophy, 
or  art.     These  arose  in  the  civilization  which  followed  the  great 
Arab  raid;  they  never  flourished  on  Arabian  soil;   they  were  never 
led  or  advanced  by  Arabs.    The  most  of  culture  which  the  Arabs 
themselves  produced  was  the  Umayyad  court  at  Damascus,  and 
when  the  Umayyads  fell  before  the  Abbasids  in  a.d.  750,  after  a 
rule  of  more  than  a  century,  the  Arab  period  closed  for  Islam. 
But  that  court  was  only  a  glorified  revival  of  the  pre-Muhammadan 
courts  at  al-Hira  and  Ghassan,  and  fostered  only  the  civilization  of 
the  desert.    There, we  hear  the  last  strains  of  the  old  poetry,  and 
hear  little  but  such  strains.  The  theologians,  it  is  true,  were  at  work; 
the  system  of  the  great  doctor  of  the  Greek  church,  John  of  Damascus, 
was  making  itself  felt;  the  things  of  religion  were  silently  but  surely 
developing.     But  of  that  rich  blossoming  time  of  prose  literature 
and  of  the  newer  poetry,  of  science,  philosophy,  and  art,  which 
followed  under  the  Abbasids,  we  have  no  trace.    With  all  that,  the 
genius  of  the  Arab  race  had  no  kinship,  and  now  the  Arab  race  was 
to  fade  from  the  scene. 


526  MOHAMMEDISM 

After  them  there  enter  the  Abbasids.  They,  too,  were  Arabs  by 
blood;  but  they,  at  least  their  earlier  rulers  of  genius,  read  aright 
the  signs,  and  saw  that  no  Arab  kingdom  could  stand  by  itself.  The 
Constitution  of  Umar,  which  regarded  the  Arab  race  as  a  people  chosen 
of  Allah  to  do  His  will,  had  broken  down  after  only  a  few  years.  The 
idea  of  the  Umayyads,  which  regarded  the  kingdoms  of  the  world  as 
created  for  the  enjoyment  of  the  Arab  race,  had  vanished  in  tribal 
strife.  The  non-Arab  Muslims  had  come  to  their  own  again,  and  by 
sheer  weight  of  numbers,  knowledge,  and  skill  had  compelled  recog- 
nition and  reckoning.  That  they  had  from  the  Abbasids.  Their 
capital,  Baghdad,  founded  in  a.d.  762  by  the  foresight  of  al-Mansur, 
was  to  draw  together  and  weld  into  a  whole  three  at  least  of  the 
Muslim  races,  the  Arabs,  the  Persians,  and  the  Syrians.  The  plan  of 
al-Mansur  succeeded  in  great  part.  The  Muslim  Empire  was  founded 
as  a  thing  not  necessarily  Arab  or  Persian  or  Syrian.  Islam,  in 
conception  so  free,  but  for  long  politically  so  limited,  had  now  broken 
its  national  bonds,  and  become  in  a  true  sense  a  universal  religion 
and  a  world-power.  Then,  in  astounding  outburst,  there  came  the 
Muslim  civilization. 

It  is  hard  to  describe  this  period  of  culture  in  terms  that  will  not 
sound  strained  and  even  hysterical.  For  the  first  hundred  years  of  the 
Abbasid  Khalifas  we  have  a  veritable  Golden  Age  in  the  intellectual 
life.  These  Khalifas  held  stiffly  to  Islam,  but  they  fostered,  too,  the 
sciences  and  arts.  All  the  thought  of  the  Greeks,  coming  in  many 
channels,  was  accepted  eagerly  by  them.  Their  people  was  urged 
to  study,  to  research,  to  production;  and  the  books  which  followed 
showed  that  the  urging  had  effect.  It  was  a  period  of  literary  earnest- 
ness and  literary  productiveness  such  as  has  seldom  been.  For  its 
mate  we  have  to  look  to  the  great  eras  of  the  world  when  awakening 
times  seem  to  have  come.  After  a  century  or  so,  it  died  away,  but  the 
intellectual  life  still  w^ent  on,  though  led  by  fewer  and  in  more  isolated 
fashion.  Then  there  would  come  another  period  at  some  other  court 
—  rivaling  but  hardly  equaling  the  first  in  brilliancy  and  originality. 
Thus  the  torch  has  been  passed  along  through  a  series,  at  long  inter- 
vals, of  such  ages  of  reviving  energy.  But  after  that  first  Abbasid 
period  we  find  the  mass  of  the  people  taking  little  part  in  these. 

Here,  then,  we  have  the  first  element  in  our  central  problem.  How 
are  we  to  condition  and  explain  this  outburst?  To  ascribe  it  to  the 
Arabs  themselves,  in  any  direct  sense,  is  evidently  absurd.  Even  to 
imagine  that  they,  as  a  virile  element,  quickened  into  life  for  a  time 
the  dying  or,  at  best,  comatose  races  which  surrounded  them,  seems 
hardly  more  satisfactory.  It  would  be  difficult  indeed  to  find  in  his- 
tory a  really  parallel  case  to  support  such  a  view.  Furthermore,  we 
find  them  at  every  turn  forced  back  for  intellectual  aid  on  these  very 
races.  Even  their  ministers  and  the  officials  of  their  governments  were 


THE   PROBLEMS  OF   MUHAMMADANISM  527 

Persians,  Turks,  and  Kurds.  Their  men  of  science  were  Syrians, 
Persians,  and  Egyptians.  Their  greatest  Arabic  scholars  and  the 
founders  of  Arabic  grammar  and  of  the  science  of  the  Arabic  language 
were  not  Arabians.  The  same  holds  of  many  great  masters  of  the 
interpretation  of  the  Qur'an,  of  theology,  traditions,  and  jurisprud- 
ence. It  is  really  impossible  to  find  a  side  of  the  intellectual  life  in 
which  the  Arabs  continued  to  hold  their  own. 

What  can  we  say,  then,  of  the  state  of  these  lands  and  people  before 
the  Arabs  came?  Did  this  civilization  exist  then,  and  was  it  simply 
passed  on  in  a  new  language  and  with  somewhat  changed  environ- 
ment? There  is  nothing  to  suggest  anything  of  the  kind.  Some  study 
of  science,  philosophy,  and  medicine  existed  in  Persia;  some  in  the 
Christian  monasteries  scattered  from  the  Mediterranean  to  the  Per- 
sian Gulf;  some,  too,  among  the  Syrian  heathen  who  had  survived, 
especially  at  Harran.  But  that  study  was  all,  as  it  were,  cloistered  in 
the  cells  and  laboratories  of  the  learned;  it  had  no  free  course  among 
the  people,  and  no  one  will  venture  to  say  that  a  period  of  culture  and 
awakening  was  then  in  progress.  Intellectually,  these  people  were 
really  asleep  or  worse.  Only  by  grasping  this  can  it  be  understood 
how  the  great  Arab  raid  swept  over  such  tracts  and  met  so  little  real 
resistance.  It  is  significant,  on  the  other  side,  to  observe  for  how  many 
centuries  the  Muslims  were  baffled  by  the  passes  of  the  Taurus  and  the 
supposed  decadent  forces  of  Byzantium.  There,  and  there  only,  did 
they  meet  a  people  which  did  not  exist  simply  in  the  past,  but  which 
had  a  living  present  and  future. 

Nor,  if  we  look  more  narrowly  at  the  Qur'an  itself,  at  the  influence 
of  the  character  of  Muhammad,  and  of  the  essential  ideas  of  Islam,  can 
we  find  a  clue  to  our  problem.  There  is  nothing  there  to  spur  to 
intellectual  exertion  or  to  pondering  over  the  problems  of  life  and 
of  nature.  Rather  the  opposite.  Natural  science  and  independent 
thought,  curiosity  as  to  the  how  and  why  of  things,  have  ever  had  to 
fight  a  long  and  losing  battle  with  simple  Islam  and  the  form  of  Ufa 
which  it  fosters.  Not  the  contemplative  life  in  Christendom  nor  the 
stiffly  held  dogmas  of  the  Roman  and  Reformation  churches  have 
shown  a  tithe  of  this  dragging  and  repressing  influence.  It  is  not 
merely  that  Islam  holds  an  absolute  doctrine  of  predestination. 
Rather,  it  is  that  for  it  the  map  of  life  is  fixed,  the  scheme  of  existence 
all  arranged  and  for  the  best.  Man  needs  only  to  accept  and  enjoy 
what  the  bounty  of  Allah  has  prepared.  Nothing  is  left  to  seek  or  to 
improve.  The  bounds  of  this  fleeting  world  and  of  man's  knowledge 
therein  are  appointed.  And  the  world,  if  it  is  sought  over-keenly, 
reckoned  over-highly,  becomes  a  seducing  temptress,  turning  man 
from  the  only  thing  of  any  importance,  the  consideration  of  Allah 
Himself.  Man's  chief  end  is  to  glorify  and  enjoy  Allah  forever;  but 
he  must  not  in  doing  that  consider  too  closely  or  curiously  the  works 


528  MOHAMMEDISM 

of  Allah  in  creation  and  providence.  He  may  look  at  nature,  but  not 
S.0  narrowly  as  to  distract  him  for  a  moment  from  nature's  God.  Free 
examination  and  speculation  without  the  ever-present  recognition  of 
a  tremendous,  overshadowing  Personality  is  denied.  The  world  is  a 
perpetual  miracle,  carried  out  from  instant  to  instant  by  this  Being. 
Nature  in  the  sense  of  law  does  not  exist.  At  best  there  is  a  certain 
uniformity  or  custom  on  which  man  may  fairly  depend.  But,  first  and 
last,  it  is  for  him  to  take  humbly  what  comes  to  him  from  day  to  day 
at  the  hand  of  Allah  and  to  keep  his  thoughts  fixed  upon  Allah  and 
upon  nothing  else.  From  Him  he  has  come,  and  to  Him  he  must 
return  when  the  world,  like  a  many-colored  bubble,  has  broken  and 
vanished  forever. 

Such  conceptions  as  these  could  never  stir  to  intellectual  life,  or 
create  a  great  period  of  civilization.  Yet  the  period  was  there  and 
with  it  our  problem,  a  problem,  to  my  mind,  as  yet  unsolved.  Soluble 
of  course  it  is,  but  I  can  put  before  you  no  solution  now.  My  object  is 
rather  to  urge  the  fact  of  this  problem,  a  fact  very  generally  obscured 
or  denied.  Let  me  put  the  problem  in  a  word.  We  have  the  Muslim 
civilization  to  explain.  None  of  the  elements  in  it  —  the  Arab  race, 
the  conquered  peoples,  Islam  —  seem  to  be  adequate  to  an  explana- 
tion. It  may  be  that  we  are  pressing  too  closely  on  the  mystery  of  the 
ebbing  and  flowing  of  the  nations  and  their  lives,  or  endeavoring  to 
estimate  conditions  which,  once  gone,  can  never  be  re-created  or  re- 
understood.  But  so  long  as  the  European  renaissance  can  be  weighed 
or  conditioned,  it  would  seem  that  this  great  Asiatic  renaissance 
should  be  possible  of  intelligible  statement. 

Let  us  turn  now  to  the  second  element.  Why  had  the  Muslim  civ- 
ilization no  permanence?  Here,  again,  it  is  necessary  to  distinguish. 
Islam  and  what  I  have  called  the  Muslim  civilization  are  two  very 
separate  things.  They  can  endure  apart  from  one  another,  I  may 
hazard  the  assertion,  more  easily,  and  are  more  thinkable  as  separate 
entities  than  Christianity  and  the  Christian  civilization.  Christianity, 
some  will  tell  us,  is  passing  in  its  historical  sense,  while  the  Christian 
civilization  is  most  enduring.  However  that  may  be,  the  essential 
concepts  of  Christianity  are  so  absolutely  part  of  the  Christian  civili- 
zation, that  to  run  a  line  between  the  two  that  will  follow  any  bearings 
but  those  of  a  confessionalist,  is  manifestly  impossible.  In  Islam  it 
was  never  so.  The  Muslim  civilization  may  be  said  to  have  flourished 
in  spite  of  Islam.  The  great  thinkers  in  Islam,  apart  from  some  pro- 
fessed theologians,  drew  no  stimulus  or  guidance  from  it;  often  they 
were  hopelessly  at  odds  with  it.  In  the  case  of  the  more  original 
theologians  even,  it  would  be  possible  to  knock  away  the  Muham- 
madan  scaffolding  and  let  the  religious  edifice  which  they  had  reared 
stand  by  itself.  Their  necessary  conceptions  are  purely  general,  com- 
pounded of  mysticism  and  theism.    The  peculiarities  of  Islam,  the 


THE  PROBLEMS  OF   MUHAMMADANISM  529 

bizarre  concretenesses  sprung  from  the  brain  of  Muhammad  and  his 
immediate  constructive  followers,  drop  easily  away  from  them.  Yet, 
in  contrast  with  the  asserted  experience  of  Christendom,  it  is  Islam 
which  has  survived  and  not  the  Muslim  civilizations.  The  worship  of 
the  black  stone  in  the  Ka'ba,  a  fetish  of  the  simplest  type,  has  tri- 
umphed over  the  exalted  aspirations  and  visions  of  the  thinker  and 
the  mystic. 

Islam,  then,  understood  in  this  sense  of  the  dogma,  ritual,  institu- 
tions and  laws  established  by  Muhammad  and  developed  by  his  suc- 
cessors, is  one  of  the  most  absolutely  permanent  things  in  the  world. 
In  spite  of  its  lack  of  elasticity,  its  grasp  once  taken  has  never  been 
broken  nor  relaxed.  Peoples  which  had  accepted  Christianity  have 
again  thrown  it  off;  but  no  people  has  yet  turned  from  Islam  to 
another  faith.  The  soil,  even,  with  one  great  exception,  which  has 
once  become  Muslim,  remains  so  to  this  day,  in  religion  at  least,  if  not 
in  government.  That  exception  was  the  Spanish  Peninsula  and  the 
islands  which  went  with  it,  an  exception  so  exceptional  in  every  waj' 
as  to  stand  by  itself.    Islam,  then,  is  permanent. 

But  the  Muslim  civilization  is  impermanent  to  a  singular  degree 
and  in  a  singular  way.  The  civilizations  have  always  had  their  tides, 
their  ebbs  and  flows.  Europe  has  had  its  dark  age,  and  again  its 
renaissance.  But  taking  the  European  civilization  in  the  broadest 
sense,  following  it  for  centuries  from  the  brilliant  period  of  Greek 
thought  and  letters  to  the  present  equally  brilliant  development  of 
material  things,  the  trend  has  been  a  gaining  one,  the  steps  and  hearts 
have  been  upwards,  and  if  there  have  come  periods  of  silence  and 
rest,  the  silence  has  been  a  brooding  and  the  rest  has  been  a  recov- 
ery of  strength.  Far  otherwise  in  Islam.  There  the  silences  have  ever 
grown  longer  and  deeper;  the  periods  of  life  and  speech  have  grown 
fewer  and  shorter.  The  bearers  of  the  torch  have  kept  dwindling  in 
numbers  and  certainly  shrinking  more  and  more  from  public  view. 
Their  periods  cease  to  belong  to,  cease  to  be  identifiable  with,  the 
Muslim  peoples;  the  leaders  die  in  obscurity  and  fear  and  leave  no 
followers;  the  abortive  great  age  is  over  and  the  old,  abiding  Islam 
reigns  on. 

Hardly  an3rthing  can  be  more  melancholy  than  to  trace  through 
Muslim  history  this  unviolated  law.  The  thread  there  of  intellectual 
life  —  leaving  out  of  account,  of  course,  the  sciences  professional  and 
ancillary  to  Islam  itself  —  may  be  said  to  have  run  threefold.  This 
analysis  is  rough,  and  depends,  in  part,  on  our  ignorance,  but  will  be 
found  suggestive  and  fairly  faithful.  Outside  of  it  may  be  placed  the 
great  intellectual  movement  in  the  first  years  of  the  Abbasids.  That 
seems,  in  truth,  to  have  been  a  movement  of  the  whole  people;  such 
a  one,  in  fact,  as  the  Elizabethan  period  in  England  or  the  renaissance 
in  Italy,  But  after  this  century  or  less  had  passed,  the  intellectual  life 


530  MOHAMMEDISM 

continued  for  a  time  in  three  different  ways.  First  there  appeared, 
from  time  to  time,  a  culture  consisting  of  a  circle  of  men  of  science 
and  letters  gathered  round  a  patronizing  monarch  at  his  court.  Such 
a  one  was  Sayf  ad-Da wla  at  Aleppo;  such  Mahmud  the  Iconoclast  at 
Ghazna;  such  many  of  the  Fatimid  princes  at  Cairo;  many  small 
dynasties  in  Spain,  and  perhaps  the  last  of  any  meaning,  were  found 
in  the  Muwahhid  dynasty  in  Spain  and  North  Africa.  In  all  these 
cases,  the  essential  thing  was  a  protector  and  fosterer  strong  enough 
to  be  able  to  neglect  popular  disapproval.  This  is  culture  on  a  court 
footing,  imitating  in  a  fashion  the  first  great  Abbasid  encouragement 
of  science,  but  existing  essentially  for  the  amusement,  edification,  and 
praise  of  the  protecting  prince.  It  did  not  spring  from  the  people, 
and  from  it  no  popular  life  could  spring.  Its  existence  was  strictly 
dependent  on  the  existence  of  a  prince  with  enlightened  tastes.  And 
even  such  princes  gradually  found  it  advisable  to  draw  a  cordon 
round  the  speculations  of  their  court  philosophers,  and  to  fence  off 
freedom  of  thought  from  the  mass  of  the  people.  On  one  side,,  they 
feared  the  effects  of  that  thought  on  the  simple  faith  of  the  multitude, 
and  on  another,  they  feared  the  wrath  of  the  multitude  against  them- 
selves and  the  freethinkers  of  their  courts.  Naturally,  under  such 
conditions,  genuine  freedom  of  thought  ceased  to  exist.  Literature 
might  flourish  after  a  fashion  and  for  a  time,  but  even  it  could  not,  in 
the  long  run,  reach  beyond  the  constructing  of  panegyrics  and  jests. 
Such  circles  stood  to  true  Augustan  ages  as  the  imitations  of  Ver- 
sailles by  petty  German  princes  to  the  actual  court  of  the  Grand 
Monarque.  As  exponents  of  civilization,  they,  in  their  final  develop- 
ment, may  safely  be  neglected.  Yet  it  is  always  to  be  remembered 
that  al-Farabi,  Avicenna,  and  Averroes,  three  of  the  greatest  names 
in  Arabic  philosophy,  were  products  of  such  conditions. 

This,  which  I  have  just  described,  was  the  public,  visible  thread  of 
the  intellectual  life  in  Islam.  It  had  no  contact  with  the  body  of  the 
people;  it  was  of  its  nature  to  be  abrupt  and  non-continuous,  a  suc- 
cession of  dwindling  points  and  not  a  line.  But  there  must  have 
existed  also  a  second  and  more  continuous  thread  of  tradition,  consist- 
ing of  private  and  solitary  students  and  thinkers.  Their  lives,  of 
necessity,  were  passed  in  quietness,  apart  from  the  throng,  seeking 
safety  from  it  and  failing  to  affect  it.  We  therefore  know  little  of  them 
in  detail.  Some  stand  out,  as  al-Ma'arri,  the  satirist,  in  one  way,  or  as 
Umar  Khayyam  in  another,  or,  as  Nasir  ibn  Khusraw,  who  finally 
sought  peace  in  ascetic  mysticism,  in  yet  a  third.  Almost  all  we  can 
say  is  that  there  was  undoubtedly  —  perhaps  still  is,  to  some  slight 
extent  —  a  small  number  of  exceptional  men  who  lived  apart  and 
pursued  philosophy  and  science  along  paths  which  led  them  often  to 
mysticism  and  alchemy.  Some  had  genius,  as  the  three  whom  I  have 
just  mentioned,  and  their  names  have  come  down  to  us.    Some  we 


THE  PROBLEMS   OF   MUHAMMADANISM  531 

know  only  by  vague  references,  or  notes  on  MSS.  Many  must  have 
gone  their  way  dumb.  They  were  all  carriers  of  a  hidden  torch,  and  in 
themselves  could  have  formed  no  civilization.  That  they  had  to  live 
thus  retired  and  practically  to  no  other  purpose  than  to  pass  on  their 
speculations  to  a  rare  handful  of  disciples  is  the  significant  thing  in 
them  for  us. 

Thirdly,  there  was  a  thread  of  development  still  more  mysterious 
to  us,  because  obscured  of  intention.  Just  as  these  solitary  thinkers 
may  sometimes  have  appeared  at  court,  so  sometimes  they  may  have 
had  part  in  that  vast  philosophical  society  which,  as  has  been  guessed 
and  as  I  have  stated  already,  lay  behind  and  was  one  of  the  weapons 
of  the  Fatimid  conspiracy.  Such  bodies  were  the  clearing-houses,  the 
means  of  exchange  and  intercourse  for  the  society  of  their  time.  On 
one  side  they  touched  the  superstitions  of  the  masses,  on  another  the 
ambitions  of  would-be  founders  of  empire;  on  a  third  all  the  existing 
phases  of  the  intellectual  life.  Of  necessity  and  on  all  sides  they  must 
work  underground,  and  they  exploited  to  the  uttermost  the  doctrine 
of  economy  in  teaching  which  all  Islam  accepts,  and  which  has  crystal- 
lized in  the  tradition  ascribed  to  Ali,  "  Speak  to  the  people  as  they  can 
understand."  Even  when  the  conspiracy  had,  on  the  surface,  suc- 
ceeded and  the  Fatimid  dynasty  was  established,  the  Hall  of  Science 
which  they  opened  at  Cairo  had  to  be  managed  with  great  care  to 
avoid  an  open  issue  with  the  believing  people.  Their  culture,  just  as  in 
the  case  of  the  courts  and  the  solitary  thinkers,  was  no  true  civiliza- 
tion, for  it  did  not  reach  the  masses. 

We  can  now  state  and  appreciate  more  exactly  our  second  problem. 
In  the  first  century  of  the  Abbasid  rule,  there  came  a  true  intellectual 
period.  It  was  an  outburst,  comparable  in  intensity  for  the  time  with 
the  European  renaissance.  Thereafter  came  a  gradual  but  persistent 
decline,  varied  only  by  such  phases  of  scientific  and  philosophical 
activity  as  I  have  already  indicated.  Above  all,  the  masses  of  the 
people  had  no  part  in  any  true  culture,  seem  to  have  been  crippled  in 
some  mysterious  way  for  independent  thought.  Our  problem,  then, 
is  how  this  should  have  been  so.  The  causes  usually  assigned  do  not 
seem  to  be  real  or,  at  least,  adequate.  Islam  itself  may  have  been  to 
blame,  but  a  new  analysis  of  Islam  will  be  necessary  to  show  how  it 
produced  such  results.  Certainly,  its  fatalism  alone  is  not  a  sufficient 
cause.  The  immediate  ancestors  of  most  of  us  were  equally  strong 
predestinarians,  but  civilization  did  not  suffer  greatly  at  their  hands. 
Nor,  to  go  farther  back,  was  the  general  position  in  Europe  before 
the  renaissance  essentially  different  from  that  in  the  contemporary 
Islam.  Only  the  renaissance  came  to  Europe  and  turned  it  sharply 
into  a  new  path,  and  medievalism  for  it  was  past,  while  Islam  still 
lived  as  in  medievalism.  That  the  Muslim  countries  are  yet  in  the 
precise  condition  and  hold  the  precise  attitudes  of  Europe  in  the 


532  MOHAMMEDISM 

Middle  Ages,  is  the  kernel  of  the  situation.  Nor  can  the  devastation 
spread  by  the  Mongol  hordes  be  alleged  as  an  adequate  explanation. 
Their  ravages  did  not  spread  far  enough;  Egypt  and  North  Africa, 
for  example,  escaped,  and  our  question  affects  all  Muslim  lands. 
Wherever  Islam  has  penetrated  and  a  Muslim  government  been 
established,  we  find  this  inevitable  decadence,  punctuated  by  brief 
and  successively  smaller  flowerings  of  a  peculiar  hothouse  culture, 
exceedingly  narrowed  in  its  scope.  And  curiously  enough,  such 
periods  are  always  a  sign  of  weakening  in  the  fabric  of  the  state  itself. 
The  more  critical  Muslims  themselves  learned  to  observe  them  and 
knew  that  the  state  in  which  they  appeared  was  nearing  its  close; 
that  some  more  barbaric  and  virile  successor  was  about  to  arise  and 
overthrow  it.  These  points  —  the  disintegrating  and  weakening 
effect  of  culture,  and  the  law  that  Muslim  states  change  and  pass 
while  Islam  itself  is  unchanging  and  permanent  —  are  to  be  read,  for 
example,  very  clearly  in  the  history  of  Muslim  Spain.  They  made  the 
reconquest  possible,  and  explain  the  puzzle  that  Spanish  Islam,  more 
highly  civilized  certainly  than  Spanish  Christendom,  and  with  the 
millions  of  Africa  at  its  back,  was  in  the  end  driven  out.  But  that 
brings  us  no  nearer  to  the  solution  of  the  primary  problems  which 
I  have  stated,  and  which  are  essentially  and  taken  together  the 
question  of  the  general  relation  of  Islam  to  civihzation.  Practically, 
they  come  out  in  another  question.  Is  Islam  capable  of  a  permanent 
and  normally  developing  civilization? 

It  is  not  my  business  here  to  offer  answers  to  these  questions. 
Mine  is  the  easier  but  less  satisfactory  part  of  stating  the  problems. 
But  from  what  has  gone  before,  it  will  be  seen  in  what  direction 
I  feel,  though  very  vaguely,  that  the  solutions  may  lie.  The  absolute 
grasp  of  Islam  on  all  the  sides  of  the  lives  of  the  Muslims  has  some- 
thing to  do  with  it.  When  theology,  philosophy,  science,  law  —  the 
church  and  the  state  in  all  their  phases  of  activity  —  are  allowed  to 
develop  separately,  much  else  will  be  possible.  Again,  when  Islam 
abandons  —  which  apparently  it  never  can  —  its  essentially  miracu- 
lous view  of  the  constitution  of  the  universe,  and  makes  some  pro- 
vision for  a  reign  of  law,  Islam  will  be  capable  of  continuous  thought 
and  development.  Thirdly,  and  to  my  mind,  most  certainly  and  em- 
phatically, the  learned  must  abandon  their  scholastically  snobbish 
attitude  toward  the  unlearned  masses.  Knowledge,  and  with  it  civ- 
ilization, must  be  made  a  thing  not  of  the  few  but  of  the  many.  The 
village  school  must  be  fostered  even  more  than  the  university;  Islam 
has  always  known  the  latter;  its  weakness  has  been  in  the  former. 
Scholars  must  leave  their  learned  ease  and  isolation  and  serenity  of 
thought  and  take  the  people  into  their  confidence.  The  economy  of 
teaching  must  go,  and  the  common-school  master  must  cease  to  be  the 
butt  of  all  the  village  jests.    When  this  is  accomplished,  if  accom- 


THE   PROBLEMS   OF   MUHAMMADANISM  533 

plished  it  can  be,  there  will  be  some  hope  of  a  permanent  civilization 
in  Islam. 

We  are  now  left  with  our  third  and  last  question.  In  what  ways 
and  to  what  extent  did  the  Muslim  civilization  affect  that  of  Europe? 
The  stating  of  it  is  almost  enough.  The  problem  is  there,  and  all  that 
I  can  do  is  to  lay  some  stress  upon  its  importance.  In  this  country, 
most  unfortunately,  the  study  of  Muhammadanism  and  of  Arabic 
things  generally  has  been  treated  as  a  subordinate  department  in 
the  study  of  the  Bible.  May  I  refer  for  illustration  to  the  arrange- 
ment of  this  Congress  itself?  We  have  this  Section  of  ours  in  the 
History  of  Religion  given  to  Muhammadanism,  and  that  is  practically 
all  the  recognition  which  the  whole  Muslim  world  has  had,  a  world 
in  contact  for  centuries  with  Christendom  and  which  deeply  affected 
it,  a  world  which,  at  the  present  time,  is  going  through  a  great 
awakening,  and  which  stands  with  Christendom  and  the  civilization 
of  China  as  one  of  the  three  great  existing  and  militant  civiUzations. 
It  is  true  that  there  is  a  Section  for  Semitic  languages,  but  the  names 
of  the  leading  speakers  there  show  that  what  is  meant  is  Semitic 
in  relation  to  the  Bible.  Nor  is  there  a  Section  of  Semitic  literature, 
though  the  Arabic  alone  is  one  of  the  richest  literatures  in  the  world. 
This, let  me  say,  is  no  criticism  of  the  present  Congress;  the  Congress, 
as  is  only  fitting,  reflects  faithfully  the  attitude  of  students  in  this 
country. 

I  need  say  nothing  of  Islam  as  it  is  at  present.  The  news  of  the 
day  brings  to  us  the  evidence  of  its  gigantic  possibilities.  But  how 
stand  the  facts  in  the  earlier  case?  For  the  medieval  world,  let 
Chaucer  instruct  us.  His  Wife  of  Bath  had  been  three  times  at  Jeru- 
salem. His  Knight  had  been  a  soldier  of  fortune  in  Muslim  lands 
from  the  Atlantic  to  Asia  Minor.  His  Squire  tells  —  unhappily 
only  half  tells  —  a  tale  from  the  Arabian  Nights.  He  himself  puts 
into  English  a  Latin  translation  of  an  Arabic  treatise  on  the  Astrolabe. 
Much  in  the  same  way  we  use  translations  of  German  treatises.  His 
mathematical  vocabulary  is  Arabic ;  the  names  of  half  his  authorities 
in  medicine  are  Arabic.  The  fact  stands  absolutely  firm  that  in  his 
time  the  Mediterranean  peoples  were  bound  by  closer  ties  of  study 
and  intercourse  than  they  have  ever  been  since.  Then  students 
went  to  Muslim  schools  in  Spain  and  southern  Italy  to  hear  the 
specialists  in  their  subjects,  and  to  pursue  post-graduate  study,  as 
ours  go  now  to  Germany.  Now  the  learned  editors  of  Chaucer  do  not 
understand  half  of  these  allusions,  and  have  to  wait  till  a  stray  Arabist 
comes  round  to  explain  them.  What  Von  Ranke,  the  great  master, 
wrote  long  ago  in  a  letter  to  his  brother,  that  for  the  historian  of 
Europe  the  two  indispensable  languages  were  Latin  and  Arabic, 
has  yet  to  bear  fruit. 

But,  happily,  in  Europe  this  extreme  ignorance  and  indifference  is 


534  MOHAMMEDISM 

passing.  The  lamented  Dozy  first  compared,  in  an  historical  spirit, 
medieval  European  chronicles  and  charters  with  Arabic  texts. 
Now  there  is  a  growing  body  of  Spanish  Arabists  who  are  following 
in  his  steps.  For  them  there  is  the  advantage  that  they  are  all  the 
time  on  their  own  soil,  and  studying  their  own  history.  The  time 
must  come  when  all  the  historians  of  medieval  Europe  will  of  necessity 
be  Arabists,  or  at  least  collaborate  with  Arabists.  And  I  venture  to 
state  the  thesis  sharply,  that  the  next  labor  for  these  historians 
will  be  to  reinterpret  the  civilization  of  Europe  in  the  light  of  that 
of  Islam.  Ignorant  depreciation  and  extravagant  worship  must 
yield  to  patient  appreciation,  and  that  can  be  reached  only  by  the 
students  of  Europe  and  of  Islam  recognizing  their  mutual  depend- 
ence and  joining  their  forces.  I  hail  this  Congress,  then,  with  its 
ample  recognition  of  the  correlation  of  sciences  and  the  necessary 
contact  of  kindred  fields,  as  a  weighty  acceptance  of  that  principle 
and  a  long  step  towards  carrying  it  out. 


SECTION  C  — OLD  TESTAMENT 


SECTION  C  — OLD  TESTAMENT 


{HaU  4,  September  22,  10  a.  m.) 

Chairman:    Professor  Augustus  S.  Currier,  McCormick  Theological  Semi- 
nary. 

Speakers:     Professor  James  F.  McCurdy,  University  College  of  Toronto. 
Professor  Karl  Budde,  University  of  Marburg. 

Secretary:  Professor  James  A.  Kelso,     Western    Theological    Seminary, 
Allegheny,  Pa. 


OLD  TESTAMENT  SCIENCE 

BY   JAMES    FREDERICK   m'CURDY 

[James  Frederick  McCurdy,  Professor  of  Semitic  Languages,  University  College, 
Toronto,  Canada,  b.  Chatham,  New  Brunswick,  1847.  B.A.  University  of  New 
Brunswick;  Gottingen  and  Leipzig,  1882-84;  Princeton  Theological  Seminary, 
1868-72.  Listructor  in  Oriental  Languages,  t&wZ.  1873-82;  Lecturer  in  Oriental 

Languages,  University  Collie,  Toronto,  1886-88;  Professor,  Und.  1888 . 

Member  Deutsche  Morgenlandische  GeseUschaf t,  Vorderasiatische  Gesellschaft. 
Author  of  Aryo-Semitic  Speech;  History,  Prophecy,  and  the  Monuments;  Life  of 
D.  J.  MacdonneU.] 

The  designation  of  this  paper  permits  a  fairly  wide  choice  in  the 
mode  of  treatment.  The  end  which  I  shall  here  keep  in  view  is  to 
indicate  the  place  occupied  by  the  Old  Testament  in  the  domain  of 
the  related  sciences.  The  subject  must  be  dealt  with  broadly  and 
comprehensively,  while  the  method  of  treatment  should  be  as  prac- 
tical as  possible.  We  should  consider  the  most  important  aspects  of 
the  Old  Testament  as  it  bears  upon  themes  which  permanently  inter- 
est the  thinking  world.  From  this  point  of  view  it  seems  well  to  keep 
out  of  sight  the  methods  and  even  many  of  the  important  results  of 
Old  Testament  research,  and  to  confine  ourselves  to  what  is  of  most 
significance  for  modem  life.  At  the  same  time  the  field  of  inquiry 
must  also  be  limited.  A  comparison  with  some  aspects  of  the  New 
Testament  will  be  made  incidentally.  But  it  will  perhaps  be  most 
profitable  within  our  present  limits  to  choose  the  three  outstanding 
references  and  deal  with  the  relations  of  our  science  to  history,  to 
literature,  and  to  sociology  and  morals. 

A  preliminary  question  at  once  suggests  itself,  Do  we  know  the 
Old  Testament  well  enough  to  justify  any  reasonable  attempt  to  bring 
it  into  relation  with  modem  thought  and  life?  The  answer  must  be, 
that  we  do  not  yet  know  it  thoroughly,  but  we  are  constantly  getting 


538  OLD  TESTAMENT 

to  know  it  better.  Old  Testament  science,  dating  from  its  first  vital- 
izing impulses,  is  just  a  century  and  a  half  old;  but  it  is  scarcely 
a  half-century  old  if  we  count  from  the  beginnings  of  constructive 
criticism.  What  is  now  attempted  can  at  best  be  only  a  comparative 
success. 

I  shall  mention  at  the  outset  a  few  conclusions  as  to  the  pro- 
per classification  and  general  purport  of  the  Old  Testament  writ- 
ings: 

We  may  divide  the  contents  of  the  Old  Testament  roughly  into  the 
narrative  or  historical  literature;  the  institutional  or  prescriptive 
literature;  the  oratorical  or  prophetic  literature;  the  lyrical  and 
reflective  poetry.  As  regards  the  first  two  divisions  it  is  to  be  said 
that  the  five  "books  of  Moses,"  which  contain  most  of  the  prescript- 
ive literature,  were  not  written  by  Moses.  They  were  written  after 
his  epoch  and  at  various  times  and  stages  in  the  history  of  Israel. 
Again,  the  narratives  generally,  from  Genesis  to  Nehemiah,  are  not 
"  history  "  in  the  strict  sense  of  the  word,  and  the  materials  for  history 
which  they  furnish  must  be  used  with  critical  caution.  They  are 
a  repertory  of  primitive  nature-myths,  remoulded  in  the  spirit  of  He- 
brew monotheism;  of  legends  regarding  the  earliest  ancestors  of  the 
Hebrew  people;  of  traditions  describing  the  beginnings  of  Hebrew 
history,  the  founding  of  its  political,  legal,  and  ceremonial  institu- 
tions, and  the  progress  of  the  tribal  settlements  in  the  land  of  Canaan; 
of  the  chronicles  of  the  royal  houses;  of  personal  memoirs  and  genea- 
logical records.  All  of  these  narratives,  whether  mythical,  legendary, 
annalistic,  or  biographical,  have  been  worked  over  in  the  interests  of 
different  schools  of  religious  thought  and  purpose,  and  are  often 
accompanied  by  interpretations  or  comments.  Most  clearly  indi- 
cated are  what  are  usually  called  the  prophetic  and  priestly  tenden- 
cies. These  convenient  terms  are,  however,  apt  to  mislead.  They  do 
special  injustice  to  the  spiritual  prophecy  of  the  Old  Testament. 
The  historical  writings  do  not  keep  pace  with  the  profound  and  pro- 
gressive movement  which  regenerated  the  religious  life  of  Israel. 
Their  authors  were  impressed  by  the  prophetic  spirit,  but  they  were 
too  conservative,  conventional,  and  nationalistic  to  be  classed  among 
the  immediate  disciples  of  the  prophets. 

The  prophetic  and  poetic  literature  has  also  been  appreciated 
by  modem  criticasm.  The  most  obvious  results  of  the  reconstruction 
are: 

(1)  Prophecy  IS  not  necessarily  or  essentially  prediction.  Prophetic 
inspiration  is  not  a  gift  of  foresight,  but  of  moral  insight.  This  has 
been  made  clear  by  our  understanding  of  the  word  and  work  of  the 
prophets  in  relation  to  the  history  of  Israel  and  the  nations,  and  to  the 
social  and  religious  conditions  of  their  time.  We  have  learned  espe- 
cially how  the  prophets  became  a  channel  of  living  truth  to  the  world 


OLD   TESTAMENT  SCIENCE  539 

when  they  proclaimed  that  true  religion  is  moral,  not  ceremonial ;  that 
the  divine  holiness  or  sanctity  has  a  moral  basis;  that  human  respon- 
sibility is  individual,  not  merely  tribal  or  national;  that  God  cares 
for  all  nations  alike;  and  that  moral  obligation  extends  beyond 
national  to  international  relations.  In  a  word,  the  prophets  laid  the 
foundations  of  the  religion  of  humanity.  This  demonstration  is 
the  crowning  glory  of  modem  criticism,  and  is  of  itself  sufficient  to 
vindicate  its  methods  and  claims. 

(2)  Of  almost  equal  importance  is  the  reconstruction  of  the  lyrical 
and  reflective  poetry  of  the  Old  Testament.  The  Psalms  of  David 
are  now  known  not  to  have  been  written  by  David,  and  the  Pro- 
verbs of  Solomon  not  to  have  been  composed  or  compiled  by  Solo- 
mon. These  are  in  themselves  secondary  matters.  What  is  of  most 
significance  is  that  Hebrew  psalmody  and  the  Wisdom  literature 
are,  as  a  whole,  complements  and  successors,  not  to  the  Law,  but  to 
Prophecy. 

(3)  What  is  dominant  and  vital  in  Hebrew  literature  is  its  imagin- 
ative element,  the  poetry  and  not  the  prose  of  the  Old  Testament. 
With  this  idealistic  literature  or  poetry  must  be  reckoned  the  greater 
portion  of  the  prophetic  writings. 

(4)  Another  epoch-making  fact  has  been  established  by  recent 
criticism, — the  essential  duality  of  the  Old  Testament.  Such  unity  as 
the  Old  Testament  has  is  superficial,  so  to  say  accidental.  It  is  a  unit 
as  the  literature  of  a  single  people,  as  written  in  what  is  practically 
the  same  language  throughout,  as  being  predominantly  religious,  as 
nominally  though  not  always  actually  illustrating  the  worship  and 
attributes  of  the  same  God.  It  is  not  a  unit  in  what  is  more  cardinal 
and  vital,  in  its  conceptions  of  God  and  of  duty,  in  its  attitude 
toward  life  and  conduct.  There  was  an  epoch  in  the  history  of  the 
Old  Testament  literature  when  its  whole  character  was  changed,  and, 
what  is  of  special  significance  for  the  question  of  the  relations  of  the 
Old  Testament,  this  era  was  also  a  turning-point  in  the  moral  and 
religious  education  of  the  race.  It  was  the  era  of  non-professional 
prophecy,  the  spiritual  birth-time  of  humanity. 

We  may  now  consider  directly  the  relations  of  Old  Testament 
science  to  other  subjects  of  human  interest.  To  what  other  branches 
of  knowledge  is  it  chiefly  indebted?  It  has  drawn  very  largely  from 
several  of  them.  In  analyzing  the  contents  of  the  Old  Testament  liter- 
ature historically  and  genetically,  and  in  determining  the  relations  of 
its  several  divisions  to  one  another.  Old  Testament  scholars  have 
gained  facts  and  suggestions  from  philology,  archaeology,  ethnology, 
literary  criticism,  and  the  modern  evolutionary  philosophy.  What 
then  does  our  science,  stimulated  and  enriched  from  the  regions  lying 
beyond  its  borders,  give  back  to  the  world  of  thought?  According  to 
the  rubric  laid  down  at  the  beginning,  we  shall  have  to  consider  the 


540  OLD  TESTAMENT 

relations  of  our  subject  to  history,  to  literature,  and  to  sociology  and 
morals. 


Relations  to  History 

These  may  be  estimated  by  examining  the  various  forms  of 
activity  by  which  the  people  of  Israel  impressed  themselves  upon  the 
world,  and  by  indicating  their  importance  to  mankind.  For  the  Old 
Testament  history  is  in  a  broad  and  very  real  sense  the  history  of 
Israel.  All  that  we  have  learned  or  are  likely  to  learn  from  outside 
sources  as  to  the  doings  and  character  of  the  Hebrews  can  do  little 
more  than  illustrate  the  national  history  embodied  in  their  own  liter- 
ary records.  What,  then,  we  ask,  has  general  history  to  gain  by  the 
tribute  which  it  draws  from  Old  Testament  science,  that  is,  from  the 
knowledge  which  the  Old  Testament  gives  to  the  world  of  the  life  and 
work  of  the  people  of  Israel?  What  were  the  forms  and  modes  of 
their  activity?  What  was  the  character  of  their  government  and  legal 
institutions;  of  their  trade  and  commerce;  of  their  industrial  and 
idealizing  arts;  of  their  mental  philosophy,  their  moral  and  religious 
principles  and  beliefs?  What  also  were  their  achievements  in  war  and 
in  statesmanship? 

Turning  to  the  Old  Testament  for  the  answers  to  these  questions, 
we  see  at  once  that,  for  comparative  purposes,  some  of  the  most 
important  of  these  factors  in  national  influence  must  be  wholly 
ignored.  The  Hebrews  made  no  name  for  themselves  in  the  useful  or 
in  the  aesthetic  arts.  They  had  no  speculative  philosophy  either  of  the 
material  or  the  supersensuous  world,  while  their  trade  and  commerce 
are  negligible  in  any  general  survey  of  ancient  civilization. 

Nor  is  the  political  history  of  Israel  now  regarded  as  of  importance 
to  the  world  at  large.  It  is  shown  to  have  been  a  mere  episode  in  the 
larger  history  of  Western  Asia,  in  which  it  was  never  of  any  moment 
as  an  active  factor.  In  the  light  of  our  reconstructed  history  of  the 
ancient  East,  Israel  is  seen  to  have  been  a  small  composite  people 
inhabiting  the  highlands  of  Palestine  at  a  comparatively  late  period, 
in  succession  to  a  long  occupation  by  Amorites  or  Canaanites,  Baby- 
lonians and  Egyptians,  inheriting  the  civilization  of  the  Canaanites 
directly,  and  tinctured  indirectly  by  that  of  the  Babylonians;  attain- 
ing to  a  sort  of  solidarity  by  tribal  federation;  then  following  the 
example  of  all  Oriental  states  by  adopting  monarchical  government, 
and,  after  a  more  or  less  precarious  autonomy,  going  the  way  of  all  the 
kindred  coast-land  peoples,  in  complete  subjection  to  the  Assyrians 
and  Babylonians.  There  is  nothing  striking  or  exceptional  even  in  its 
period  of  independence,  at  least  to  the  mere  chronicler  of  momentous 
political  events.  Yet  to  the  student  of  national  and  social  life  there 
are  points  of  much  interest.    One  is  the  cohesiveness,  unique  among 


OLD   TESTAMENT  SCIENCE  541 

the  Semites,  of  the  clans  and  tribes  of  Israel,  whereby  without  resort- 
ing to  kingly  headship  they  became  a  confederation  with  a  national 
outlook  and  spirit.  Another  is  the  brotherliness  of  the  two  kingdoms 
after  the  schism  that  followed  the  death  of  Solomon,  by  virtue  of 
which  their  reestablished  friendship  was  scarcely  broken  for  a  century 
and  a  half.  These  things  suggest  that  the  history  of  Israel  best  repays 
study  from  a  point  of  view  different  from  that  of  the  historian  of 
spectacular  or  epoch-making  external  events. 

Old  Testament  science,  then,  serves  political  history  mainly  as  it 
contributes  to  an  accurate  estimate  of  the  place  and  function  of  a  small 
portion  of  the  Semitic  family,  and  thereby  throwing  a  little  light  upon 
the  struggle  for  existence  of  the  peoples  of  Western  Asia.  From  this 
point  of  view  the  history  of  Israel  has  received  more  illustration  from 
the  history  of  kindred  peoples  than  it  has  itself  contributed,  and 
must  be  reckoned  a  beneficiary  rather  than  a  benefactor.  To  have 
established  here  the  true  relation  of  things  is,  however,  no  mean 
achievement  of  our  science,  which  has  sifted  the  chaff  from  the 
wheat  in  the  traditions  of  the  national  heroes,  and  has  reduced  to 
its  correct  proportions  the  age-long  estimate  of  the  prowess  and  dig- 
nity of  the  kings  of  Israel.  We  may  now  see  how  insignificant  was 
the  place  occupied  by  the  Hebrew  people  in  the  wars  and  politics  of 
the  ancient  world.  The  most  significant  thing  in  its  career  was  its 
inextinguishable  vitality,  and  that  was  due  not  to  the  performances 
of  its  rulers  and  warriors,  but  to  the  thoughts  and  aspirations  of 
its  prophets  and  poets,  who  breathed  into  the  soul  of  the  true  Israel 
the  breath  of  their  own  inspiration.  Thus  the  saying  of  "one  of 
them"  was  fulfilled,  —  "Not  by  might  nor  by  power,  but  by  my 
Spirit,  saith  Yah  we." 

The  institutional  history  of  ancient  Israel  has  also  been  set  in  a  new 
light  by  modern  research.  This  has  been  done  in  two  principal 
ways: 

(1)  The  legal  and  prescriptive  writings  are  now  seen  not  to  have 
preceded  and  inspired  the  prophetic  and  reflective  literature,  which  is 
in  the  main  independent  of  them.  It  had  formerly  been  thought  that 
the  germs  of  the  sentiments  of  Prophecy  and  the  Psalms  were  con- 
tained in  the  Law.  Hence  its  importance  in  the  traditional  theory  of 
the  composition  and  growth  of  the  Old  Testament.  Now  it  is  seen  to 
have  been  largely  theoretical,  and  some  of  the  most  imposing  pre- 
scriptions were  never  brought  into  practical  effect.  Moreover,  men 
now  feel  that  what  is  essentially  formal  or  preceptive  cannot  be  the 
antecedent  condition  of  growth  and  evolution  in  the  world  of  the 
spirit.  But  the  Law,  as  far  as  it  is  either  ceremonial  or  regulative,  has 
a  value  to  the  student  of  institutional  history  as  having  been  the 
great  conservative  force  in  the  late  pre-Christian  centuries,  and  as 
furnishing  one  of  the  keys  to  the  external  history  of  modem  Judaism. 


542  OLD  TESTAMENT 

On  the  other  hand,  the  more  ethical  portions  of  the  Pentateuch, 
including  the  Decalogue,  being  due  to  prophetic  influence,  are  to  be 
regarded  as  illustrative  of  the  practical  effect  produced  by  the  great 
spiritual  revolution,  which  did  not  receive  literary  expression  till  the 
eighth  century  before  our  era. 

(2)  The  more  strictly  juridical  portions  of  the  Law  have  also  been 
set  in  new  relations.  Though  they  have  played  no  part  directly  in 
moulding  the  modern  legislation  of  Europe  and  America,  outside  of 
ecclesiastical  and  civil  laws  relating  to  marriage  and  divorce,  yet  they 
have  always  exercised  a  strong  moral  and  sentimental  influence  by 
reason,  in  large  part,  of  the  persuasion  that  they  were  of  directly 
divine  origin.  Recent  inquiry  into  the  customs  of  older  Semitic 
peoples  has  largely  dispelled  the  belief  that  they  were  exclusively 
framed  within  the  bounds  of  Israel.  The  strongest  testimony  to  the 
indebtedness  of  the  Pentateuchal  codes  to  earlier  outside  legislation  is 
furnished  by  the  code  of  Hammurabi.  This  document  of  course  did 
not  contribute  directly  any  of  the  biblical  material.  It  simply  affords 
overwhelming  proof  that  while  Israel  shared  in  the  general  consue- 
tudinary law  of  the  primitive  western  Semites,  its  special  legislation 
was  indirectly  influenced  by  legal  digests  published  at  various 
times,  long  before  the  days  of  Moses,  in  Babylonia,  the  home  of  the 
higher  Semitic  civilization. 

It  is  thus  admitted  that  both  the  incidents  of  Israel's  career  and 
its  national  institutions  are  of  but  secondary  practical  moment.  But 
it  must  be  granted  just  as  freely  that  this  limitation  is  no  gauge  at  all 
of  the  significance  of  Old  Testament  history  in  the  life  and  thought  of 
men.  This  apparent  paradox  suggests  a  parenthetical  remark  as  to  the 
point  of  view  from  which  Old  Testament  history  may  best  be  treated. 
If  the  historian,  deferring  to  the  maxims  of  the  school  of  Ranke,  were 
to  attempt  to  give  an  account  of  Israel  from  the  standpoint  of  object- 
ive fact  alone,  and  of  every  circumstance  of  its  process  and  develop- 
ment "nur  zu  sagen  wie  es  eigenUich  gewesen  ist,"  his  occupation 
would  be  virtually  gone.  If  we  are  to  exclude  the  sentimental  and  the 
subjective  entirely  in  our  constructions  of  Old  Testament  history,  and 
abjure  the  prerogative  of  moral  judgment,  we  may  as  well  give  up  our 
essays  altogether,  and  the  fragmentary  and  partial  yet  humanly  and 
divinely  priceless  records  of  Hebrew  history  may  be  at  once  handed 
over  to  the  dogmatist  and  the  exhorter.  To  be  an  interpreter  is,  in 
this  province  at  least,  to  be  a  censor.  This  is  our  way,  often  our  only 
way,  of  prophesying.  Lord  Acton  has  said,  "  Our  historical  judgments 
have  as  much  to  do  with  hopes  of  heaven  as  public  or  private  con- 
duct." And  yesterday  we  were  reminded  by  Professor  Mahaffy  that 
in  historical  science,  if  we  seek  first  the  kingdom  of  God  and  his 
righteousness,  all  other  things  will  be  added  unto  us. 


OLD  TESTAMENT  SCIENCE  543 

Relations  of  the  Old  Testament  to  Literature 

The  most  important  literary  phenomenon  of  the  Old  Testament 
is  the  fact  that  Hebrew  literature  began  and  ended  with  poetry, 
and  that  its  most  precious  burden  of  thought  and  feeling  was  con- 
veyed to  the  world  through  poetic  channels.  The  Hebrews  were  not 
merely  exceptionally  endowed  poetically,  but  poetry  was  to  them  the 
natural  and  spontaneous  expression  of  all  deep  and  earnest  feeling. 
And  it  was  in  artistic  forms,  however  simple,  that  the  individual 
poet  gave  voice  to  his  own  convictions,  and  bodied  forth  his  own 
ideals  in  the  one  undivided  sphere  of  religion,  patriotism,  and  practical 
life,  or  gave  voice  to  the  inarticulate  impulses  and  desires  of  his 
community  or  his  nation.  Thus  the  poetry  of  the  Old  Testament  is, 
as  far  as  it  goes,  an  accurate  register  of  the  moral  and  intellectual 
history  of  the  Hebrew  people,  of  its  progress  from  primitive  rudeness 
in  thought  and  speech  to  ideal  sublimity  and  beauty;  from  the  rugged 
simplicity  of  the  "Song  of  the  Well"  to  the  artistic  symmetry  and 
rhetorical  splendor  of  the  ''  Ode  "  on  the  fallen  Babylonian,  or  the 
sustained  reflectiveness  of  the  Book  of  Job;  from  the  barbaric 
vengefulness  of  the  Song  of  Lamech  or  the  Song  of  Deborah  to  the 
chivalric  altruism  of  the  allegory  of  Jonah. 

To  bridge  over  the  transition  from  the  previous  topic  to  the  present, 
it  may  be  pointed  out  that  as  far  as  the  relations  of  the  literature  of 
the  Hebrews  to  their  own  history  is  concerned,  the  literature  is  in 
a  very  real  and  profound  sense  itself  the  history.  With  the  ancient 
Hebrews,  even  more  than  with  the  Ionian  Hellenes,  the  word  was  the 
deed  and  the  idea  the  fact.  The  known  events  of  the  career  of 
Israel  are  a  mere  mutilated  and  disjointed  skeleton.  But  the  body, 
the  flesh  and  the  blood,  of  a  human  history  are  provided  by  the 
ideas  and  sentiments  of  the  moral  and  religious  leaders  of  the  race, 
and  it  is  to  the  literature  that  we  must  resort  if  we  are  to  be  true  his- 
torians or  interpreters  of  Israel. 

But  our  chief  present  interest  is  with  the  literature  viewed  com- 
paratively. According  to  what  has  been  said,  we  must  consider 
mainly  the  poetry  of  the  Old  Testament.  And  we  have  to  use  this 
term  in  the  most  comprehensive  sense.  It  should  be  made  to  embrace, 
not  merely  what  is  demonstrably  metrical  in  form,  such  as  the  Psalms, 
Proverbs,  Job,  Canticles,  and  Lamentations,  most  of  the  prophetic 
writings,  and  the  lyrical  and  elegiac  poems  scattered  through  the 
narrative  literature,  but  also  what  is  less  artistically  composed  and 
yet  just  as  clearly  poetic  or  idealistic  in  spirit,  the  emotional  as  well 
as  the  imaginative  passages  in  the  traditions  and  chronicles.  What 
remains,  graphic  as  it  often  is,  and  always  realistic,  is  usually  prosaic 
and  commonplace.  The  points  of  most  importance  in  comparison 
with  other  literatures  are  perhaps  the  following: 


544  OLD  TESTAMENT 

(1)  The  forms  of  the  verse.  In  describing  these  we  are  justified 
in  using  the  word  "measure,"  and  in  regarding  parallelism  as  a 
secondary  characteristic.  Parallelism  is  essentially  a  subjective 
phenomenon,  finding  occasional  analogy  in  all  other  literatures  and 
thoroughgoing  resemblances  in  several,  and  is  therefore  to  be  dealt 
with,  in  the  first  instance,  from  the  point  of  view  of  corporate  or 
folk-psychology.  The  metre  is  the  surest  means  of  distinguishing 
poetry  from  prose,  in  the  structural  if  not  always  in  the  aesthetic, 
sense  of  the  terms;  and  regularity  of  verse-structure  may  be  ap- 
pealed to  in  textual  emendation  with  more  confidence  than  many 
leading  critics  manifest  or  allow.  As  to  the  measures  themselves, 
thanks  to  recent  investigations  (I  name  only  those  of  Budde  and 
Grimme  and  the  epoch-making  constructive  work  of  Sievers) ,  distinct 
and  substantial  progress  has  been  made  in  the  acquisition  of  a  working 
system.  With  regard  to  the  vexed  question  of  strophical  divisions, 
I  can  only  say  that  the  truth  seems  to  lie  between  the  extremes  re- 
presented by  the  opposing  views  of  Duhm  and  Budde.  A  strophical 
structure  is  actually  marked  in  some  cases,  and  obvious  in  many 
others;  but  as  we  have  to  deal  with  blank  verse  and  not  the  more 
regularly  disposed  rhyming  lines,  inconsistencies  in  the  groupings 
of  the  verses  in  the  same  composition  are  not  surprising  anywhere. 
A  special  interest  is  lent  to  the  study  of  Hebrew  poetry  by  the  fact 
that  in  its  iambic  and  anapestic  measures  it  bears  a  generic  resemb- 
lance to  some  of  the  more  common  and  popular  forms  of  modern 
versification. 

(2)  As  to  species  and  styles  of  composition  I  would  remark  the 
poetic  form  of  most  of  the  prophetic  discourses,  which  accords  so 
well  with  the  general  idealistic  character  of  the  Hebrew  hterature 
already  referred  to.  Among  ancient  peoples  the  earliest  seers  were 
usually  singers  or  poets;  but  it  was  characteristic  of  the  Hebrew 
seers  that  even  when  their  messages  became  political  and  national 
they  should  still  be  given  forth  in  verse.  Noteworthy  also  is  the 
attempt  to  give  a  sort  of  dramatic  setting  to  religious  and  moral 
reflection,  as  in  the  Book  of  Job,  and  to  idyllic  love-songs,  as  in  the 
Canticles.  Such  essays  were,  from  our  point  of  view,  uncertain  and 
unsuccessful,  but  coming  from  a  people  so  subjective  in  all  literary 
art,  and  with  no  knowledge  or  conception  of  a  real  drama,  they  must 
be  judged  by  a  standard  of  their  own  and  without  reference  to 
anything  non-Semitic,  They  are  really  allegorical  rather  than 
dramatic,  and  the  interest  centres  not  in  their  obscure  and  rudiment- 
ary plot,  but  in  the  force  and  beauty  of  single  passages.  From  this 
point  of  view  their  place  in  the  world's  literature  is  better  under- 
stood. As  a  compensation  for  the  absence  of  a  real  drama,  the  lyric 
and  didactic  poetry  of  the  Old  Testament  is  in  its  kind  quite  un- 
excelled.    Moreover,  the  whole  literature  is  in  a  sense  dramatic,  in 


OLD   TESTAMENT  SCIENCE  545 

the  vividness  and  naturalness  of  every  picture  of  life  and  manners, 
in  the  constant  use  of  concrete  facts  and  images  as  the  vehicle  of 
instruction,  in  the  absence  of  abstractions  in  all  appeals  and  argu- 
ments, in  discussions  even  of  matters  metaphysical,  and  in  the 
profoundest  reflections  upon  the  nature  of  God  or  man.  The  Old 
Testament  is  a  type  by  itself  in  the  literature  of  the  world,  and  forms 
a  special  training-school  for  the  imagination  and  the  critical  judg- 
ment. Having  obtained  among  non-Semitic  Western  nations  a  wider 
currency  than  any  literature  of  their  own,  it  has  become  among  all 
civilized  peoples  a  fountain  of  the  purest  literary  inspiration,  promot- 
ing simplicity  and  naturalness  in  speaking  and  writing  and  a  love 
of  the  real  and  the  concrete  in  practical  thinking.  At  the  same 
time,  having  survived  nearly  all  of  the  writings  that  have  misin- 
terpreted it,  and  having  outworn  and  displaced  the  creeds  which 
misrepresented  it,  it  is  becoming  more  and  more  the  world's  chief 
religious  classic  and  hand-book  of  practical  morals,  while  retaining 
unimpaired  its  character  as  literature,  as  a  mirror  and  criticism  of 
human  life. 

(3)  Expression  of  the  religious  life.  It  is  the  singularly  uniform 
tendency  of  the  Old  Testament  to  regard  things  from  the  religious 
point  of  view,  no  matter  which  of  the  various  aspects  of  human  life 
may  be  dealt  with.  This  prevailing  religious  character  formerly 
excited  little  surprise,  since  the  whole  literature  was  regarded  as 
a  direct  divine  revelation.  An  explanation  might  be  given  that  the 
religion  of  the  ancient  Hebrews  embraced  the  whole  of  their  life  in 
all  its  motives  and  activities.  Properly  understood  this  explanation 
is  just.  The  real  state  of  the  case  would,  however,  be  better  set  forth 
by  two  considerations.  In  the  first  place,  religion  and  morality  (the 
more  primitive  as  well  as  the  prophetic  morality)  and  common  life 
were  to  the  old  Hebrews  one  and  the  same  in  their  nature,  and 
therefore  one  and  the  same  in  their  expression.  The  fundamental  fact 
is  that  they  recognized  no  duality  in  human  nature;  they  believed 
that  the  whole  man  in  all  his  functions  and  faculties,  such  as  we 
term  body,  soul  and  spirit,  mind  and  heart,  went  together  both  in 
the  offices  of  religion  and  in  the  habits  and  activities  of  daily  life. 
Hence  to  them  a  separation  between  belief  and  conduct,  between 
piety  and  duty,  between  rehgion  and  morals,  would  have  been 
unthinkable  even  if  the  modern  analysis  and  phraseology  could  have 
been  made  intelligible  to  them.  Again,  that  they  judged  human 
life  and  action  mainly  from  the  point  of  view  of  religion,  and  not 
with  reference  to  any  other  tendency  or  impulse  of  our  race,  is  due 
to  the  fact  that  the  divine  was  ever  in  their  thoughts,  for  their  God 
was  their  Father,  whose  fatherhood  was  sure  even  if  Abraham  were 
to  disown  them  and  Israel  were  not  to  acknowledge  them,  who 
was  the  constant  sustainer  of  their  individual  being  and  of  their 


546  OLD   TESTAMENT 

social  and  civil  life,  who  established  and  guaranteed  the  unity,  the 
solidarity,  and  the  perpetuity  of  their  nation  and  of  every  clan  and 
every  family  within  it,  whose  own  life  and  activity  pervaded  and 
enveloped  them,  who  beset  them  behind  and  before  and  laid  his 
hand  upon  them. 

(4)  The  influence  of  the  Hebrew  poetical  literature  —  so  great 
both  intensively  and  extensively  —  how  is  it  to  be  accounted  for? 
Following  merely  one  line  of  direction,  we  naturally  compare  the 
New  Testament  Apocalypse.  It  is  also  largely  a  Jewish  book  sur- 
charged with  old-world  conceptions,  images,  and  phrases,  such  as 
those  which  stimulated  the  thought  and  imagination  of  the  Old 
Testament  seers  and  poets;  and  it  also  strikingly  illustrates  the 
power  of  poetry  to  raise  men  above  the  evil  present  and  to  maintain 
in  the  darkest  hour  the  supremacy  of  faith  and  trust  in  the  divine 
and  the  ideal.  Outside  of  this  narrow  analogy  of  the  New  Testament 
poetry,  there  is  nothing  that  can  be  brought  into  comparison  with 
the  poetry  of  the  Hebrews.  Contrast,  if  you  will,  the  quality  of  the 
Psalms,  as  a  whole,  with  that  of  modern  or  even  medieval  Christian 
hymns,  which  often  please  and  sometimes  move,  but  rarely  thrill 
us,  and  with  the  lack  of  the  simple  universal  human  touch  in  other 
religious  liturgies,  which  are  almost  powerless  outside  of  their  own 
circles  of  worshipers!  I  venture  to  suggest  the  following  as  among 
the  causes  of  the  influence  of  the  national  poetry  of  Israel : 

(a)  Hebrew  poetry  was  national  as  well  as  individual,  and  therefore 
wielded  a  power  at  once  concentrated  and  diffusive.  When  it  ceased 
to  be  national,  it  not  only  languished  as  an  artistic  product,  but  lost 
its  distinctive  moral  force.  It  may  be  observed  that  the  poetry  of 
the  ancient  Greeks,  who,  along  with  many  contrasts,  yet  show  more 
analogies  with  the  Hebrews  than  do  any  other  non-Semitic  peoples, 
lost  its  moral  effectiveness  also  when  it  ceased  to  be  national,  as  it 
had  been  in  the  old  creative  epoch  when,  in  the  words  of  Professor 
Jebb,  "poetry  was  interwoven  with  the  whole  texture  of  Greek 
life." 

(b)  We  may  go  yet  further  and  add  another  element  to  the  causes 
of  the  moral  supremacy  of  the  Hebrew  poetry.  We  must  compare 
not  merely  one  species  of  literature  with  another,  but  also  modern 
with  ancient  literature.  Old  Testament  poetry  was  informed  with 
a  dynamic  energy  such  as  modern  poetry  seldom  wields  because  the 
poet  thought  and  felt  and  sang  as  making  up,  along  with  his  people 
and  his  God,  one  single  indivisible  force.  Against  many  of  the  gains 
of  our  modern  life  we  have  to  set  off  the  irreparable  loss  of  this  old- 
world  association  of  the  human  individually  and  socially  with  the 
divine.  The  resultant  of  the  working  of  the  forces,  mental,  moral, 
and  emotional,  released  by  the  pressure  of  this  conception  upon 
devout  and  loyal  souls,  may  almost  be  expressed  in  terms  descriptive 


OLD  TESTAMENT  SCIENCE  547 

of  physical  energy,  so  plainly  are  their  action  and  interaction  dis- 
played, for  example,  in  the  pleadings  of  Hosea,  the  invocations  of  the 
ninetieth  Psalm,  or  the  patriotic  visions  and  declamations  of  the 
Second  Isaiah.  From  a  general  point  of  view  a  distant  parallel  may 
be  found  in  the  national  songs  of  modern  Japan.  There  is  no  literary 
product  of  recent  time  like  these  for  intensified  energy  or  power  of 
popular  inspiration;  for  the  Japanese  alone,  among  great  modern 
peoples,  have  combined  in  one  overpowering  patriotic  sentiment 
the  conceptions  and  passions  of  the  old  world  and  the  new. 

(c)  This  inherent  force  and  freshness  of  the  Hebrew  national  poetry 
were  still  further  augmented  when  the  prophets  expressed  the 
sentiments  and  passions  of  a  community  within  the  community,  of 
an  Israel  within  Israel,  of  a  party  of  long-tried  and  faithful  souls, 
contending  for  the  principles  which  were  at  once  the  salvation  of 
the  state  and  a  revelation  of  the  nature  a.nd  will  of  the  God  of  Israel 
and  of  the  universe. 

(5)  We  may  notice  finally  the  bearings  of  Hebrew  literature 
upon  the  question  of  the  causes  of  the  production  and  decline  of 
poetry  and  imaginative  composition  generally.  It  seems  to  be  an 
invariable  law  that  poetic  fervor  and  creativeness  belong  to  the 
earlier  national  life  of  every  literary  people  and  not  to  the  period  of 
its  maturity.  It  is  not  that  in  their  later  time  the  cultured  peoples 
of  the  world  lose  the  inspiration  of  religious  faith  or  of  national 
freedom  or  of  international  conflict;  for  no  one  of  these  conditions 
explains  the  decline  of  imaginative  genius  among  the  Anglo-Keltic 
or  the  Romanic  or  the  Germanic  nations.  There  comes  a  time  in  the 
history  of  every  highly  endowed  people,  even  the  most  romantic  and 
enthusiastic,  when  literature  ceases  to  be  spontaneous  and  creative, 
and  becomes  reflective,  critical,  and,  so  to  speak,  professional,  while 
at  the  same  time  accelerated  progress  is  shown  in  other  intellectual 
fields,  in  all  liberal  arts,  in  industry,  commerce,  and  political  and 
social  life.  But  poetry  or  idealistic  literature  flourished  all  through 
the  history  of  Israel.  Instead  of  declining  with  the  loss  of  national 
independence  and  political  freedom,  it  became  finer  and  nobler. 
The  best  poetry  did  not  precede  the  best  prose,  as  in  the  history  of 
other  great  literatures,  but  followed  it.  For  a  thousand  years  a 
genius  for  poetry  and  song  wrought  in  Israel  irrepressibly,  as  though 
endowed  with  the  freshness  and  vigor  of  perpetual  youth.  This 
also  is  unique.  Professor  Macdonald  pointed  out  to  us  yesterday 
that  the  old  songs  of  the  pre-Islamic  Arabs  are  still  chanted  in  the 
interior  of  the  great  peninsula,  essentially  unchanged  in  form  and 
spirit.  But  these  Arabs,  of  the  desert  had  not  to  submit  to  the 
unnerving  and  vulgarizing  process  of  constant  national  attrition 
and  degradation.  They  were  like  the  people  of  whom  an  anony- 
mous prophet  has  said  that  like  wine  settled  in  the  lees  it  had  not 


548  OLD   TESTAMENT 

been  poured  from  vessel  to  vessel  nor  had  gone  into  captivity,  and 
therefore  its  flavor  had  remained  in  it,  and  its  scent  had  not 
changed.  Yet  the  literary  history  of  these  secluded  Arabs  is  in  its 
way  unique.  Is  it  not  to  be  explained  in  part  by  the  reserve  power 
inherent  in  this  race,  the  survivors  of  the  oldest  and  purest  of  the 
Semitic  peoples?  The  Hebrews  had  also  a  reserve  power  drawn  from 
their  own  peculiar  antecedent  history  and  from  the  religion  of  Yah  we. 

Relations  of  the  Old  Testament  to  Sociology  and  Morals 

Here  we  come  into  a  more  practical  sphere.  The  question  arises 
at  once.  Can  the  Old  Testament  be  brought  into  relation  with 
modern  life?  Can  the  complicated  social  and  ethical  problems  of 
our  time  be  solved  or  simplified  by  the  help  of  any  doctrine  or  prin- 
ciple or  conception  peculiar  to  the  Old  Testament?  Apparently 
it  is  usually  thought  to  be  impossible.  The  Old  Testament  is  very 
little  cited  or  appealed  to  in  sociological  discussions.  The  most 
notorious  and  indeed  almost  the  only  instance  is  the  case  of  the 
deceased  wife's  sister.  The  Old  Testament  is  supposed  to  have  been 
antiquated  and  replaced  by  the  New  in  all  matters  of  practical 
moment.  Apart  from  its  acknowledged  merits  as  literature  and 
chronicle,  and  its  more  or  less  formal  use  as  a  manual  of  devotion, 
it  is  regarded  as  a  subject  of  historical  interest,  as  an  expression  of 
antique  ways  of  thinking  and  feeling.  Histories  of  morals  scarcely 
ever  refer  to  it  except  in  the  way  of  implied  disparagement  by  con- 
trasting its  temporary  teachings  with  the  perpetual  validity  of  the 
New  Testament.  Histories  of  religion,  apart  from  special  treatises, 
view  it  as  the  embodiment  of  a  transient  phase  of  Semitic  thought 
and  belief,  or  else  dispose  of  it  summarily  by  pointing  out  that  the 
Judaism  of  which  it  is  the  exponent  has  been  supplanted  by  Christ- 
ianity. Even  such  a  critic  as  Robertson  Smith  asserts  that,  it  would 
be  absurd  to  expect  to  find  in  the  Old  Testament  truth  that  is  not  in 
the  New. 

Possibly  the  value  of  the  Old  Testament  as  an  authority  in  socio- 
logy and  practical  morals  has  been  impaired  through  this  wholesale 
depreciation.  Though  the  general  question  of  its  value  as  a  guide  in 
matters  of  principle  and  conduct  cannot  be  argued  here,  the  special 
case  at  issue  may  be  disposed  of  by  simply  comparing  the  distinctive 
social  virtues  of  the  Old  Testament  with  those  of  the  New.  On  the  one 
side  we  have,  according  tD  the  classical  passage  Micah  6:8,  especially 
justice  or  righteousness  and  mercy  or  kindness.  On  the  other  we  have 
especially  the  finer  virtues,  —  forgiveness,  forbearance,  tolerance, 
charity.  These  latter  are  also  the  choice  accomplishments  of  modern 
society.  What  does  modern  society  stand  most  in  need  of?  Justice 
and  mercy.    This  is  the  clamorous  demand  coming  from  every  con- 


OLD  TESTAMENT  SCIENCE  549 

Crete  form  of  human  society:  associations  of  trade,  industry,  and 
government;  all  sorts  of  employments,  legislation,  civic  administra- 
tion, diplomacy,  international  relations.  It  was  once  thought  that  it 
was  harder  to  acquire  th^  finer  graces  of  the  New  Testament  than  the 
more  elementary  virtues  of  the  Old.  This  is  doubtful.  At  all  events,  it 
is  easier  to  feign  the  possession  of  the  former  than  of  the  latter,  and 
an  occasional  indulgence  in  works  or  words  of  charity  will  throw 
a  successful  disguise  over  a  cold  and  deceitful  heart  or  a  selfish  and 
unwholesome  life.  Justice  and  mercy  are  really  the  rarest  of  virtues, 
and  they  are  sociologically  the  most  precious.  They  have  also  the 
wider  range.  Their  proper  application  outside  the  sphere  of  individual 
relations  is  the  slowest  of  all  social  reforms.  In  the  realm  of  corporate 
interests  it  is  still  timid  and  unsure;  in  that  of  international  relations 
it  has  little  more  than  just  begun. 

Here  the  Old  Testament  is  distinct  from  the  New.  Here  the  Old 
Testament  is  not  rudimentary  or  provisional  or  preparatory.  If  it  is 
of  value  it  is  independently  valuable.  Is  it  of  value?  If  anything 
historical  or  literary  is  of  value  for  moral  purposes,  the  sociological 
principles  of  the  Old  Testament  are  valuable.  They  were  the  cardinal 
principles  of  a  community  that  struggled  for  centuries  to  enforce 
them.  They  came  to  flower  and  fruit  in  the  precepts  and  examples  of 
the  prophets,  and  are  celebrated  in  the  sweetest  lyrics  of  the  prophetic 
school  of  poetry.  There  is  no  other  practical  illustration  or  justifica- 
tion of  justice,  righteousness,  and  mercy  such  as  is  given  in  the  Old 
Testament. 

The  prophets  introduced  to  the  world  these  terms  and  these  ideas. 
They  created  practically  a  new  vocabulary,  and  set  up  a  new  moral 
and  social  code.  And  the  outcome  of  justice  and  mercy  is  peace  —  not 
the  peace  of  truce  or  compromise,  of  subjugation  and  submission,  of 
devastated  lands  and  desolate  homes  and  ruined  lives,  but  peace 
wrought  by  righteousness.  "  The  mountains  shall  bring  forth  peace, 
and  the  little  hills,  by  righteousness,"  is  a  forecast  of  the  rule  of  the 
"Prince  of  Peace."  And  a  New  Testament  book  with  an  Old  Testa- 
ment coloring  reechoes  the  thought  when  it  describes  the  coming 
Saviour,  "being  first  king  of  righteousness  and  afterwards  king  of 
Salem,  that  is  King  of  Peace." 

Consider  but  the  single  sphere  of  international  relations  and 
obligations.  The  New  Testament  simply  could  not  with  propriety 
deal  with  this  most  comprehensive  and  weighty  of  all  sociological 
matters,  because  there  was  no  occasion.  It  was  not  merely  because 
the  principles  of  social  and  civil  righteousness  had  been  established 
once  for  all,  but  also  because  no  international  questions  were  possible 
to  the  people  of  Judsea  in  the  times  of  Jesus  and  the  apostles.  There 
was  practically  but  one  nation  in  the  whole  Jewish  world.  Contrast 
with  this  condition  of  affairs  the  political  situation  of  the  days  of  the 


550  OLD   TESTAMENT 

prophets,  three  of  whom,  Amos,  Isaiah,  and  Jeremiah,  make  the  pro- 
vince of  international  relations  one  of  cardinal  importance,  while 
Habakkuk  devotes  to  it  the  whole  of  his  prophecy. 

What  is  the  Old  Testament  sanction  for  Iflie  practice  and  authority 
of  these  primary  and  essential  virtues?  It  is  strictly  sociological.  It 
is  based,  on  the  one  hand,  upon  the  solidarity  of  the  community  by 
blood-brotherhood,  and,  on  the  other,  upon  the  relation  of  each  mem- 
ber of  the  community,  and  of  the  whole  body  as  one  family,  to  the 
common  God.  The  new  world  long  ago  lost  these  old-world  principles. 
But  they  are  based  upon  the  original  constitution  of  society,  and  until 
thej''  are  reinstated  society  will  not  be  renewed  and  reformed.  And 
singularly  enough,  sociological  science  is  beginning  to  realize  the 
former  of  the  two  principles.  It  is  reaching  by  slow  deductions  the 
prophetic  conception,  when  it  declares  that  the  individual  can 
realize  himself  only  in  society;  that  the  state  is  an  organism  for  the 
promotion  of  this  self-realization,  fostering  in  its  members  the  senti- 
ment of  patriotism;  and  that  the  alliance  or  federation  of  the  nations 
is  a  necessary  further  medium  for  the  development  of  this  same  self- 
realization  of  the  individual,  who  never  can  complete  or  fulfill  himself 
until  he  makes  himself  one  with  his  own  community  and  with  the 
larger  community  of  mankind. 

The  other  sentiment  —  that  of  the  union  of  the  members  of  the 
community  with  the  common  God  —  lies  outside  the  sphere  of  modern 
sociology.  Why?  Because  the  new- world  view  has  divorced  religion 
wholly  from  social  life,  that  is  to  say,  from  practical  morals,  by 
making  it  solely  a  matter  of  the  relation  of  the  individual  soul  to  God, 
instead  of  its  relation  to  both  God  and  man.  The  result  has  been 
infinitely  disastrous.  The  churches  are  supposed  to  look  after  our 
religion,  but  no  one  dreams  of  looking  after  our  morals.  To  the 
simple  philosophy  of  the  Old  Testament  this  dualism  of  religion  and 
morals,  the  dividing  up  of  a  man  into  separable  elements,  and  of 
his  life  into  unrelated  functions,  was  a  conception  unknown  and  in- 
conceivable. But  Greek  analytic  speculation,  and  medieval  phrase- 
mongering, and  the  habit,  so  dear  to  the  Occidental  mind,  of  giving 
concrete  reality  to  our  abstractions,  have  wrought  havoc  with  our 
common  sense  and  indefinitely  postponed  the  redemption  of  society. 
We  have  banished  God  from  our  homes  and  haunts  to  his  cold  and 
distant  heavens,  and  in  the  long  absence  of  the  Father  his  earthly 
household  is  left  desolate.  We  often  hear  the  admonition,  "  Back  to 
Jesus!"  With  equal  urgency  we  may  well  raise  the  cry,  Back  to 
Jesus  and  the  Prophets! 


THE  RELATIONS  OF  OLD  TESTAMENT  SCIENCE  TO  THE 
ALLIED  DEPARTMENTS  AND  TO  SCIENCE  IN  GENERAL 

BY  KARL   FERDINAND   REINHARD   BUDDE 
{Translated  from  the  German  by  the  American  Journal  of  Theology) 

[Karl  Ferdinand  Reinhard  Budde,  Professor  in  ordinary  of  Old  Testament  Theology, 
University  of  Marbui^,  Germany,  b.  April  13, 1850,  Bensberg,  Rhenish  Prussia. 
Bonn,  1867-68;  Berlin,  1868-69;  Bonn,  1869-70-71;  Utrecht,  1871-73;  D.D. 
Giessen,  1883.  Privat-docent,  Bonn,  1873-79;  Professor  extraordinary,  Bonn, 
1879-89;  Professor,  Strassburg,  1889;.  Professor  ordinary,  Strassburg,  1889- 
1900;  Professor  ordinary,  Marburg,  1900 .  Member  Society  of  Biblical  Lit- 
erature, Brooklyn  Institute  of  Arts  and  Science.  Author  of  Biblical  Primeval 
History  Investigated;  The  Books  of  Judges  and  Samuel;  The  Religion  of  Israel 
to  the  Exile;  The  Canon  of  the  Old  Testament;  and  many  other  books  and  essays.] 

Permit  me  to  begin  my  address  with  a  personal  reminiscence. 
It  was  just  six  years  ago  yesterday  that  I  stepped  for  the  first  time 
upon  the  soil  of  the  New  World.  I  was  invited  here  by  the  Com- 
mittee for  the  American  Lectures  on  the  History  of  Religions,  to 
deliver  a  course  of  lectures  upon  "The  Religion  of  Israel  to  the 
Exile."  When  I  closed  the  first  lecture  in  that  course  at  one  of  your 
oldest  and  most  important  universities,  a  colleague  from  the  depart- 
ment of  science  came  up  and  greeted  me  most  kindly  wdth  the  words : 
"Why,  you  really  use  the  same  methods  as  we."  Now,  it  is  just 
this  to  which  our  opponents  object,  and  with  which  they  re- 
proach us  Old  Testament  students  who  take  a  critical  standpoint. 
We  have  even  been  branded  with  the  beautiful  name  "evolutionary 
theorists."  Nevertheless,  I  was  far  from  being  unpleasantly  affected 
by  that  first  greeting.  On  the  contrary,  I  expressed  to  the  represent- 
ative of  the  exact  sciences  my  sincere  pleasure  that  he  had  felt  so 
directly  the  affinity  between  us,  and  I  found  in  it  additional  ground 
for  the  hope  that  I  was  on  the  right  road  with  my  deductions. 

To  this  truth,  that  all  genuine  science  forms  one  living  body 
through  which  the  same  blood  courses,  which  is  animated  and  nour- 
ished by  the  same  forces  and  by  the  same  means,  no  such  tangible 
and  overpowering  expression  has  ever  been  given  as  in  this  Congress 
of  Arts  and  Science  which  here  unites  us,  their  representatives  from 
the  whole  educated  world,  in  the  bonds  of  brotherhood.  One  of  the 
two  addresses  in  every  department  is  specially  intended  to  show  how 
the  several  branches  of  science  manifest  their  particular  relation  to 
science  as  a  whole.  This  is  the  task  confided  to  me  for  my  special 
branch.  Allow  me  to  interpret  the  w^inged  word  of  six  years  ago  as  a 
prophecy  of  our  present  meeting,  and  at  the  same  time  as  an  encour- 
aging sign  that  I  may  in  fact  fulfill  the  intention  of  these  addresses, 
and  so  meet  the  expectation  of  the  Congress.    I  may  be  permitted 


552  OLD  TESTAMENT 

to  take  for  granted  that  you  do  not  expect  anything  heroic  from  me. 
You  simply  suppose  that  one  who  for  full  thirty  years  has  worked  in 
his  department  is  in  a  position  to  present  its  peculiarities  and  its 
aims  with  approximate  accuracy. 

The  department  which  I  represent,  and  of  which  you  to-day 
demand  from  me  an  account,  is  the  Old  Testament  branch  of  theology, 
in  short,  Old  Testament  theology.  Strictly  speaking,  we  are  here  not 
concerned  with  a  branch  of  pure  science,  which  investigates  its 
object  simply  for  its  own  sake.  Therefore  I  must  hesitate  to  accept 
the  position  you  have  given  my  Department  as  a  branch  of  the  His- 
tory of  Religion.  What  we  understand  by  theology  is  really  not  the 
science  of  religion  as  such,  but  the  science  of  the  Christian  Church. 
In  fact,  as  matters  stand  to-day  and  have  stood  since  time  im- 
memorial, it  is  the  science  of  only  one  of  its  forms  of  development  — 
in  my  case  of  the  German  Evangelical  Church  —  whose  interests 
and  needs  our  theology  serves.  Theology  is,  thus,  only  an  applied 
science,  for  which  fact  it  must  console  itself  in  common  with  many 
others  — for  example,  to  mention  only  those  most  nearly  related,  in 
our  university  programme,  with  law  and  with  medicine. 

Now,  to  the  Old  Testament  department,  in  comparison  with 
others,  and  with  the  multiplicity  of  churches  within  Christianity, 
there  might  be  conceded  a  favored,  one  might  say  an  ecumenical, 
position,  in  that  it  ends  at  the  point  where  Christianity  begins;  that 
is  to  say,  before  there  were  schisms  within  its  own  body.  Neverthe- 
less, the  individual  beliefs  of  members  of  the  department  will  certainly 
never  entirely  lack  influence  upon  the  work  of  the  department  as 
a  whole.  And,  in  any  case,  our  position  toward  the  religion  of  the 
Old  Testament,  as  far  as  it  claims  to  be  a  living  religion,  is  very 
sharply  defined.  We  have  no  other  calling  than  to  explain  how 
the  religion  of  the  New  Testament,  the  Christian  religion,  could  — 
nay,  must  —  spring  up  on  the  ground  of  the  Old  Testament  religion; 
or,  religiously  expressed,  how  God  through  Israel  prepared  his  human 
children  for  the  coming  of  salvation  in  Jesus  Christ.  This  prescribed 
task  has  naturally  its  correlate  in  individual  conviction,  and  if  ever 
one  of  us  should  come  to  the  conclusion  that  not  Christianity,  but 
Judaism,  is  the  fulfillment  of  the  Old  Testament,  then  he  must,  for 
his  profession  as  well  as  for  his  belief,  draw  from  this  its  inevitable 
conclusions. 

In  thus  fully  and  freely  accepting  the  church's  traditional  name. 
Old  Testament,  —  Old  (that  is,  outgrown)  Covenant, — for  the 
object  of  our  research,  we  really  exercise  a  certain  amount  of  self- 
denial,  and  resign  ourselves  to  accept  a  comparatively  humble  posi- 
tion. Whether  this  always  wins  us  due  gratitude  from  the  Christian 
Church  is  anything  but  sure.  Our  position  and  our  role  in  the  church 
organism  have,  indeed,  changed  essentially  in  the  course  of  the  cen- 


RELATIONS  OF  OLD  TESTAMENT  SCIENCE        553 

turies  and  the  millenniums.  When  the  church  came  into  existence, 
it  accepted  the  books  of  the  synagogue  as  the  one  Holy  Scripture,  to 
which  it  added  only  the  person  of  Jesus  Christ  as  the  incarnate  ful- 
fillment and  consummation  of  the  Old  Covenant.  The  proof  that 
he  was  the  Saviour  rested  upon  evidences  which  were  believed  to 
stand  upon  every  page  of  those  books.  When  to  the  Old  Testament 
there  was  added  in  the  Gospels  and  the  Epistles  a  New  Testament, 
which  put  the  person  and  the  teaching  of  Jesus  on  an  independent 
basis,  and  when  this  biblical  teaching  was  embodied  in  ecclesiastical 
dogma,  the  Old  Testament  still  retained  its  peculiar  value.  Inspired 
of  God,  it  remained  for  the  church,  now  as  before,  God's  Word,  and, 
as  such,  each  of  its  words  remained  true.  Nor  was  it  valid  for  the 
past  alone,  to  which  it  had  been  given;  for  Christ  had  built  on  Old 
Testament  ground,  and  had  let  much  remain,  instead  of  making 
substitutions.  Moreover,  if  Christianity  was,  or  included,  an  author- 
itative conception  of  the  universe, — which,  as  the  heir  of  the  Greek 
philosophy,  it  claimed  to  do,  —  then  it  greatly  needed  the  Old  Testa- 
ment for  the  completion  of  its  system  over  long  periods,  especially 
for  its  teaching  on  the  creation  and  building  of  the  world,  on  the 
prinieval  state  of  man,  and  on  the  origin  and  nature  of  sin.  Accord- 
ingly, the  Old  Testament  continued  to  remain  in  honor,  in  the  church 
of  the  Reformation  not  less  than  before,  and  down  to  modern  times. 
Now  all  this  is  changed.  In  the  face  of  searching  investigation  of  the 
Scriptures,  many  messianic  prophecies  had  to  fall,  and  the  rest  re- 
ceived a  new,  a  merely  relative,  significance.  The  theory  of  inspira- 
tion, of  the  absolute  and  literal  divinity,  of  the  language  of  Holy 
Scripture  has  fallen  to  the  ground  before  historical  criticism,  and  can 
never  rise  again.  Metaphysics  we  have  put  aside,  and  the  investiga- 
tion of  the  universe  and  its  development  we  resign  without  regret  to 
other  sciences,  to  whose  success  we  give  our  blessing.  The  gospel  has 
become  for  us  completely  independent,  and  the  person  of  Jesus 
Christ  the  essence  of  our  religion.  By  all  this  the  Christianity  of  the 
nineteenth  century  grew  in  concentration  and  inner  strength,  and 
accordingly  in  legitimate  self-consciousness;  but  in  the  same  degree 
did  the  Old  Testament  retreat  into  the  background  and  lose  value 
within  the  theological  framework.  It  was  but  a  natural  consequence  of 
this  that  a  party  not  to  be  overlooked  maintained  that  the  Old  Testa- 
ment was  completely  and  entirely  cast  aside.  Indeed,  within  the 
theological  faculties  themselves  doubts  now  and  then  arose  as  to 
whether  the  Old  Testament  should  be  permitted  to  retain  its  position 
of  equality  with  other  departments  of  the  theological  course. 

We  need  not  fear  that  such  views  will  prevail.  On  the  eve  of  the 
twentieth  century  there  came  a  revolution  for  which  we  living  Old 
Testament  men  had  for  some  decades  been  energetically  preparing. 
Even  lay  circles  now  hear  that  theology  is  being  viewed  and  treated 


554  OLD   TESTAMENT 

from  the  standpoint  of  the  history  of  reUgion.  The  name  might, 
however,  be  better  chosen;  it  is  not  a  matter  of  the  history  of  religion, 
but  of  the  comparative  study  of  religion;  and  this  study  tends  to 
and  aims  at  a  physiology  of  religion,  or,  to  use  the  right  word,  at 
a  biology  of  religion. 

We  have  learned  to  consider  everything  called  religion  as  forming 
a  distinct  department,  and  an  exceptionally  large  one,  of  pulsating 
life  within  the  realm  of  human  existence.  All  its  phenomena  enter 
into  the  closest  mutual  relations;  none  of  its  almost  innumerable 
manifestations  can  be  separated  and  isolated  from  the  others.  It  is 
a  frequent  experience  that  most  unexpectedly  there  appear  mysterious 
relations  between  apparently  the  lowest  and  the  very  highest  forms, 
which  warn  us  neither  to  despise  nor  to  neglect  even  the  most  insigni- 
ficant among  them.  By  this  Christianity  can  only  win,  not  lose.  In- 
deed the  more  we  extend  the  range  of  observation  and  the  deeper  we 
penetrate  into  details,  the  more  evident  will  it  become  that  the  reality 
of  religion  is  incontestable  and  its  vitality  indestructible.  The  more 
numerous  the  inner  relations  running  through  the  whole  body,  the 
more  certainly  will  everything  be  traced  back  to  the  one  central  point, 
to  the  living  God,  who  has  fanned  this  spark;  and  we  Christians, 
notwithstanding  all  our  conscious  weaknesses,  joyfully  accept  the 
test  of  spirit  and  power  for  the  fact  that  Christianity  is,  among  all 
individual  religious  organisms,  the  highest  and  the  most  perfect,  the 
aim  and  the  end  of  the  whole  process. 

Looked  at  from  this  point  of  view,  the  Old  Testament  comes  quite 
of  itself  to  new  honor.  For  however  all  religions  are  correlated, 
and  all  their  phenomena  organically  connected,  Jesus  Christ,  the 
founder  and  essence  of  our  religion,  was  certainly  a  Jew  of  the  Jews. 
However  unique  and  creative  the  power  and  efficacy  of  religious 
genius  manifested  in  him,  the  preliminary  conditions  for  this  appear- 
ance are  nevertheless  furnished  by  the  Old  Testament.  Just  as 
the  genius  has  his  father  and  mother  as  well  as  the  most  ordinary 
earthling,  so  Jesus  always  and  unhesitatingly  recognized  this  his 
relation  to  the  Old  Testament;  in  fact,  he  made  for  himself  no  greater 
claim  than  that  he  was  come  for  its  fulfillment.  To  destroy  this 
relation  would  be  not  merely  ruthless,  it  would  also  be  simply  impos- 
sible. Therefore  the  more  the  Christian  and  the  theologian  cares  for 
an  organic  conception  of  his  religion,  the  more  has  the  Old  Testament 
to  say  to  him. 

The  relation  of  the  Old  Testament  to  the  New  is,  however,  not 
such  a  one  —  if  supposable  —  as  that  borne  by  insignificant  parents 
to  their  highly  gifted  son.  The  Old  Testament,  on  the  contrary,  is 
unusually  rich  in  phenomena  important  for  the  history  of  religions. 
The  more  clearly  research  separates  the  characteristic  and  important 
stages  of  the  phenomena  of  religion  from  the  confusing  mass  of  single 


RELATIONS   OF   OLD   TESTAMENT  SCIENCE        555 

facts,  the  more  evident  it  will  become  that  the  Old  Testament  contains 
within  itself  an  unusually  large  number  of  important  stages  which 
have  been  passed  through  successively  or  simultaneously.  It  is  only 
with  this  result  attained  that  the  earnest  and  self-denying  critical 
work  done  during  the  past  century  upon  our  Old  Testament  is 
brought  to  a  close,  and  at  the  same  time  celebrates  its  triumph.  For 
in  agreement  with  these  results  all  those  various  manifestations  of 
religious  action,  feeling,  and  thought  are  successively  or  simultan- 
eously disclosed;  so  that  wherever  literary  criticism  has  distinguished 
different  sources  from  each  other,  there  are  also  disclosed  various 
stages  of  religious  perception,  and  each  of  these  stages  finds  within  the 
broad  realm  of  religion  corresponding  phases  of  religious  thought, 
more  or  less  related.  Whoever  stands  in  the  midst  of  the  matter,  and 
has  learned  to  think  and  to  feel  with  the  Old  Testament,  will  not  let 
himself  be  led  astray.  Again  and  again  the  attempt  has  been  made  to 
derive  the  whole  of  the  phenomena  found  in  the  Old  Testament  from 
one  and  the  same  source,  from  this  or  that  great  civilized  nation  of 
antiquity.  It  is  true  that  ancient  Israel  had  about  her,  on  the  right 
and  on  the  left,  the  religious  second-hand  shops  of  over-civilized 
peoples,  from  which  syncretistic  temerity  could  easily  derive  whatever 
it  liked.  But  one  who  does  not  merely  stand  outside  and  look  over 
the  hedge  into  the  Old  Testament  knows  that  the  religion  of  Israel, 
however  manifold  and  however  wise  its  cross-breedings,  is,  neverthe- 
less, grown  from  the  kernel.  We  Old  Testament  students  are  there- 
fore not  at  all  in  the  fortunate,  or  at  least  comfortable,  position  of 
being  able  to  limit  our  study  of  comparative  religion  either  to  the 
lands  on  the  Euphrates  and  the  Tigris,  or  to  a  small  group  of  civilized 
countries  in  Hither  Asia;  for  we  have  repeatedly  learned  that  the 
most  primitive  forms  of  religion  afford  striking  and  exceedingly 
useful  points  of  comparison  for  the  Old  Testament. 

Now,  these  facts  have  an  important  bearing  upon  the  position  of  the 
Old  Testament  in  the  academic  programme.  Of  late  the  cry  sounds 
ever  louder  that  the  department  of  the  history  of  religion  is  indis- 
pensable to  the  theological  faculty,  and  that  the  subject  absolutely 
must  be  added  to  those  already  presented;  indeed,  this  is  in  many 
cases  already  an  accomplished  fact.  I  do  not  know  whether  this  is 
to  be  considered  an  unqualified  advantage.  The  familiar  definition 
of  theology  as  the  science  of  religion  I  consider  wide  of  the  mark. 
Theology  is,  as  I  have  already  said,  not  a  pure  but  an  applied  science, 
busy  with  life  within  sharply  defined  limits.  To  penetrate  to  the 
depths  of  the  general  history  of  religion,  within  the  time  which  is 
allotted  to  the  study  of  theology,  in  addition  to  the  enormous  range 
of  studies  already  included,  is  an  absolute  impossibility.  A  short 
course  of  lectures  on  the  subject  might  do  harm  rather  than  good, 
by  leading  the  student  to  think  that  he  possessed  genuine  knowledge, 


556  OLD  TESTAMENT 

whereas  the  treatment  could  hardly  be  made  to  include  much  more 
than  nomenclature  and  dates.  More  valuable,  but  at  the  same  time 
incomparably  more  difficult,  would  be  a  course  upon  what  is  cus- 
tomarily called  the  philosophy  of  religion,  but  which  should  be 
termed  the  biology  of  religion;  upon  the  regularly  recurring  mani- 
festations of  the  life  of  religion.  The  preparation  for  this,  the  actual 
illustration  —  and  that  is  the  most  important  part  —  has  long  been 
everywhere  offered  by  Old  Testament  science,  just  because  the  Old 
Testament  is  so  exceptionally  rich  in  most  varied  religious  phenomena. 
Here  it  is  possible  to  penetrate  to  the  depths,  and  to  study  the  life 
itself;  something  necessarily  denied  to  one  in  the  case  of  a  sum- 
marizing treatment  of  the  whole  field.  Therefore  as  substitute,  as 
proxy  for  the  general  history  of  religion,  as  the  science  of  one  religion 
outside  of  Christianity,  which  gives  us  the  training  to  enter  into  the 
mysteries  of  our  own,  Old  Testament  science  will  in  the  future  more 
firmly  than  in  the  past  maintain  its  position  within  Christian  theology. 
But  not  alone  in  the  relation  of  our  department  to  the  whole 
organism  of  theology  has  there  lately  come  a  decided  change;  the 
boundaries  of  the  department  itself  have  also  been  extended,  and 
the  gap  which  separated  it  from  its  sister-discipline.  New  Testament 
theology,  has  been  closed.  For  the  church  the  Old  Testament  was 
only  the  collection  of  canonical  books  of  the  synagogue,  because 
they  were  alone  believed  to  be  inspired  of  God.  Besides  these,  only 
the  so-called  Apocrypha,  taken  from  the  LXX,  enjoyed  an  esteem 
which  was  variously  graduated  from  a  degree  nearly  equaling  that 
given  to  the  Holy  Scriptures  down  to  a  decided  distrust  and  rejec- 
tion. We  know  to-day  that  the  belief  in  inspiration  is  nothing  more 
than  an  error  —  to  be  sure,  an  easily  explainable  error  —  a  lifeless 
form  of  the  belief  in  revelation  which  is  itself  indispensable  to  religion; 
and  we  now  know  that  divine  revelation  in  the  right  sense,  always 
relative,  always  through  human  mediation,  and  in  the  most  varied 
shades  of  intensity,  exercises  its  quickening  influence  through  the 
whole  wide  world.  With  this  the  barriers  fall,  and  all  the  phenomena 
of  religion  of  the  people  of  the  Old  Covenant,  wherever  set  down, 
become  valuable  material  for  Old  Testament  theology.  This  is 
particularly  true  of  the  whole  extra-canonical  writings,  which  in 
recent  times  have  received  such  manifold  and  unexpected  additions. 
So  far  as  these  belong  to  pre-Christian  Judaism,  they  fall  to  the  share 
of  the  Old  Testament  department,  and  thus  appreciably  enlarge  the 
field  of  our  duties  and  of  our  tasks;  indeed,  they  so  greatly  enlarge 
it  that  we  must  ask  ourselves  whether  we  are  in  a  position  to  meet 
these  increased  demands  without  loss  of  thoroughness.  But  even 
before  the  question  is  settled  whether  the  blame  for  this  is  to  be 
laid  to  our  incapacity  or  to  our  apathy,  necessity  comes  to  its  own 
rescue.    All  this  extra-canonical  literature  belongs  to  the  last  pre- 


RELATIONS  OF   OLD  TESTAMENT  SCIENCE        557 

Christian  centuries,  which  are,  indeed,  not  without  representation  in 
the  Old  Testament  canon,  but  only  by  way  of  exception  and  con- 
trary to  the  opinion  and  intention  of  the  synagogue.  Now,  since  this 
body  of  writings  is  not  only  in  point  of  time  nearest  neighbor  to  the 
New  Testament,  but  emphatically  its  cradle,  it  has,  naturally  enough, 
attracted  much  more  attention  from  our  New  Testament  colleagues 
than  from  ourselves.  Under  the  unattractive  name  of  New  Testa- 
ment contemporary  history,  it  has  developed  as  an  independent 
branch,  and  a  whole  school  of  New  Testament  students  have  devoted 
themselves  with  zeal  and.  thoroughness  to  this  inter-Testament  time 
and  literature.  We  Old  Testament  men  ought  not  to  lose  touch  with 
this  field;  in  fact,  it  is  greatly  to  be  desired  that  there  shall  alwaj^s 
be  some  of  us  who  bend  our  chief  energies  toward  its  particular 
investigation.  But  its  complete  incorporation  into  our  department 
has  been  prevented  by  the  facts;  and,  moreover,  the  study  of  Israel 
of  the  earlier  time  will  long  make  such  demands  upon  our  undivided 
strength  that  it  will  employ  by  far  the  greater  number  of  our  workers. 

In  another  direction  the  necessity  for  division  of  labor  seems  even 
less  open  to  question,  but  rather  fundamentally  justified.  Only 
uncertain  boundaries  naturally  separate  that  body  of  popular  writ- 
ings, the  so-called  Apocrypha  and  Pseudepigrapha,  from  the  literature 
of  talmudic  Judaism,  in  which  alone  the  Hebrew  language,  together 
with  the  Jewish  Aramaic,  continued  to  exist  and  to  develop.  The 
roots  of  this  body  of  writings  stretch  back  into  the  pre-Christian 
period,  and  thus  reach  as  well  into  the  fields  of  Old  Testament 
science.  What  is  therein  handed  down  to  us  is  absolutely  indispens- 
able for  the  reconstruction  and  exposition  of  the  canonical  books; 
indeed,  the  form  in  which  we  possess  the  latter  is  simply  that  of  the 
synagogue.  The  insight  into  post-Christian  development  is  also  of 
great  value  for  us,  because  in  this  connection  lines  are  running  on 
which  trace  their  beginning  to  pre-Christian  Judaism  in  the  Old 
Testament,  so  that  they  must  serve  as  guides  to  the  full  recognition 
of  the  possibilities  contained  in  the  Old  Testament.  All  this  does  not 
invalidate  the  truth  that  our  peculiar  task  is  ended  when  talmudic 
Judaism  has  fully  developed  and  gained  the  mastery.  For  us  it  is 
not  a  matter  of  our  own  territory,  but  of  frontier  lands.  Here,  too. 
Old  Testament  science  has  worked  and  has  given  contributions  of 
the  greatest  importance,  and  it  always  will  be  to  our  advantage,  as 
well  as  to  that  of  the  science  of  Judaism,  to  send  to  that  camp  from 
ours  some  workers  who  will  there  perform  their  chief  labor.  Most 
of  us  will  have  to  be  content  with  much  less  in  order  really  to  ac- 
complish something  in  our  own  particular  field. 

But  the  Old  Testament  has  not  spent  its  life  and  its  influence 
solely  in  its  original  language  and  among  the  people  from  which  it 
sprang,  but,  as  a  component  part  of  the  sacred  book  of  Christianity, 


558  OLD  TESTAMENT 

it  has  been  translated  into  the  language  of  all  Christian  peoples, 
where  it  has  gained  a  new  life  deeply  influenced  by  the  peculiar 
nature  of  such  new  homes.  By  means  of  these  translations,  most  of 
all  through  the  Latin,  the  Old  Testament  has  during  all  succeeding 
centuries  influenced  and  fructified  the  development  of  civilization 
among  all  the  Christian  nations,  and  this,  moreover,  not  only  in  the 
religious  field,  but  throughout  its  whole  extent  and  compass.  The  lit- 
erature and  the  art  of  the  Middle  Ages  show  at  every  stage  deeply  im- 
pressed traces  of  this  influence,  which  become  the  more  intricate  and 
the  more  complicated  because  of  the  venerable  antiquity  and  mys- 
terious heterogeneousness  of  the  Old  Testament  to  those  who  searched 
it.  So  the  Old  Testament  gains  a  new  life,  a  second  existence;  its 
original  being  is  doubled  by  translation  and  exegesis,  by  the  whole 
wide  field  of  tradition.  That  here,  too,  obligations  rest  upon  us  is  not 
in  the  least  to  be  denied,  for  only  one  who  is  master  of  the  original 
meaning  will  be  in  a  position  fully  to  disclose  the  maze  through  which 
thought  and  imagination  have  wandered  mth  these  texts.  Often 
I  have  stood  ashamed  that  I  could  give  no  satisfaction  to  philo- 
logists, historians,  and  students  of  the  history  of  art  who  turned  in 
all  confidence  to  me  with  burning  questions  from  the  field  of  tradi- 
tion. One  needs  a  particular  talent  to  be  able  to  cultivate  this  field 
with  success;  a  taste  for  miscellaneous  peripheral  investigation,  com- 
prehensive learning  based  on  a  tenacious  memory,  a  liking  for 
psychological  labyrinths  and  for  turning  up  forgotten  old  trash. 
I  have  in  mind  to-day  one  learned  man  in  particular  who  possesses 
this  equipment  in  abundance,  and  gives  many  valuable  proofs  of 
it ;  but  he  should  be  able  to  devote  to  it  all  his  time  and  have  many 
assistants  in  order  to  cover  this  need.  It  is  not  necessary  that  all 
should  be  of  us,  but  all  must  have  gone  out  from  us.  Thorough 
Old  Testament  study  would  furnish  a  worthy  equipment  for  close 
research  in  nearly  all  fields  of  the  Middle  Ages.  On  the  other  hand, 
for  this  task,  far  from  fruitless  in  itself,  the  majority  of  Old  Testa- 
ment specialists  must  admit  their  incapacity. 

In  returning  to  the  central  point,  whence  we  followed  a  longi- 
tudinal section  through  the  ages,  we  find  that  there  lies  in  the  breadth 
of  our  territory  on  all  sides  such  an  enormous  amount  of  w^ork  to  be 
done  that  upon  it  we  unquestionably  need  to  concentrate  our  ener- 
gies. Of  neighbors  —  no,  of  co-workers  —  beyond  the  borders  of 
theological  science  we  have  an  unusual  number. 

The  Old  Testament  worker  is,  first  of  all,  a  linguist;  as  such  he 
represents  an  independent  branch  of  the  Semitic  linguistic  stock, 
the  Hebrew,  in  particular  the  old  Hebrew,  language.  This  is  not 
the  place  to  speak  of  its  relation  to  other  branches  of  the  same  family. 
It  need  hardly  be  said,  however,  that  to  make  a  thorough  study  of 
these  tongues  is  the  duty  of  the  Old  Testament  worker,  in  order  to 


RELATIONS  OF  OLD  TESTAMENT  SCIENCE        559 

gain  a  foundation  for  the  real  mastery  of  his  peculiar  linguistic 
domain.  This  task  alone  is  very  comprehensive  and  difficult,  and 
has  become  increasingly  so  since  to  the  Arabic  and  Aramaic  linguistic 
stock,  with  their  ramifications,  the  magnificent  discoveries  on  the 
Euphrates  and  the  Tigris  have  added  the  Assyro-Babylonian, 
The  majority  of  us  older  men,  whose  period  of  growth  coincided  with 
the  beginnings  of  these  new  studies,  must,  in  our  relation  to  them, 
content  ourselves  with  the  role  of  outsiders.  But  even  for  the  younger 
generation  one  may  be  permitted  to  ask  the  question  whether  it  is 
necessary  —  yes,  whether  it  is  salutary  —  to  strive  for  citizenship  in 
the  whole  domain,  now  so  expanded,  of  the  Semitic  languages.  The 
almost  invariable  result  will  be  that  one  of  the  principal  fields  will 
be  decidedly  favored.  In  fact,  those  representatives  of  the  Old 
Testament  who  are  linguistically  well  prepared  for  their  task  are 
already  separating  into  those  grounded  in  the  Arabic  and  those 
grounded  in  the  Assyro-Babylonian  language.  And  thus  it  must 
remain,  if  linguistic  preparation  is  not  to  flatten  out  into  an  ency- 
clopedic polymathy  —  an  unfortunate  condition  which  is  already  too 
frequently  noticeable.  To-day  it  may  not  be  superfluous  to  emphasize 
two  points  in  particular:  first,  that  the  Semitic  language  of  the 
cuneiform  inscriptions  is  not  called  to  supplant  the  other  dialects  as 
a  foundation  for  Hebrew;  second,  that  in  the  study  of  the  dialects  the 
unique  quality  of  the  Hebrew  is  never  to  be  forgotten  or  neglected. 
Because  the  bulk  of  the  writings  is  but  slight,  and  the  vocabulary  and 
constructions  correspondingly  meagre,  Hebrew  is  by  no  means  to 
be  acquired  incidentally,  and  as  it  were  in  leisure  hours.  Often 
enough  a  miserable  failure  has  resulted  when  capable  Semitists 
of  reputation,  knowing  themselves  thoroughly  at  home  in  Arabic, 
Syriac,  or  Assyrian,  thought  that  as  Hebraists  also  they  could  speak 
a  decisive  word.  It  is  and  always  will  be  a  life-work  to  acquire  a  liv- 
ing sense  of  the  genius  of  the  Hebrew  language,  and  it  will  be  better, 
if  the  choice  must  be  made,  after  once  a  solid  linguistic  foundation 
has  been  laid,  to  neglect  the  outposts  rather  than  to  reject  the  full 
mastery  of  the  Hebrew. 

Moreover,  our  linguistic  equipment  is  not  completed  even  with 
the  inclusion  of  the  Semitic  languages;  the  old  versions  already  men- 
tioned as  the  vehicles  of  tradition,  as  the  transmitters  of  the  content 
of  the  Old  Testament  to  different  periods  and  to  different  civilized 
countries,  are  our  indispensable  aids  to  the  philological  discovery 
of  its  original  text.  To-day  an  Old  Testament  worker  without 
a  thorough  familiarity  with  the  idiom  of  the  Septuagint  is  incon- 
ceivable, and  the  identification  and  purification  of  the  text  of  the 
Septuagint  require  a  knowledge  of  nearly  all  languages  of  the  Roman 
orbis  terrarum,  at  least  of  its  larger  eastern  portion  and  of  its  neigh- 
boring countries.    Especially  since  Lagarde's  telUng  work  a  special 


560  OLD  TESTAMENT 

Septuagint  science  has  grown  up,  and  will  not  for  a  long  time  to  come 
lay  down  its  authority. 

With  this  we  are  standing  in  the  midst  of  philology,  to  which  in 
its  whole  range,  as  to  a  sister-science,  we  also  lay  claim.  Even  the 
authentication  of  the  text,  in  the  case  of  our  literature,  meets  with 
very  unusual  difficulties.  For,  as  is  well  known,  all  this  work  on  the 
versions  must  be  directed  solely  toward  securing  a  single  independent 
form  of  text,  apart  from  that  which,  since  the  second  century  a.d., 
has  been  handed  down  by  the  synagogue  in  stubborn  exclusion,  and 
to  the  destruction  of  all  variants.  Even  the  best  preserved  of  the 
books  —  no  one  to-day  doubts  this  —  still  demand  a  great  deal  of 
philological  work;  the  condition  of  the  others  is  simply  lamentable. 
The  amount  of  help  which  the  versions,  especially  the  Septuagint, 
offer  varies  widely.  With  such  meagre  outward  evidence  everywhere, 
the  inner  evidence  must  be  drawn  out  as  a  decisive  factor,  and  con- 
jectural criticism  here  opens  up  a  wide  field,  in  which,  besides  much 
chaff,  also  much  good  fruit  has  been  gathered. 

Another  branch  of  philological  activity  has  been  employed  in 
textual  criticism,  and  has  attained  special  prominence  in  recent  years. 
I  refer  to  metrics.  Indeed,  the  Hebrew  metric  exerts  so  strong  an 
attraction  that  even  remote  distinguished  representatives  of  lin- 
guistic departments  have  applied  themselves  to  it  with  great  en- 
thusiasm and  industry.  Here,  too,  as  in  textual  criticism,  we  are 
in  a  worse  plight  than  the  majority  of  our  colleagues;  for  here  too  we 
lack  the  most  essential  foundation  —  there  is  no  tradition  at  all 
handed  down  to  us.  When,  in  the  light  of  the  sad  condition  of  our 
text,  there  is  an  attempt  to  use  metrics  in  their  widest  sense  for  the 
reconstruction  of  its  original  form,  then,  in  the  face  of  this  lamentable 
state  of  affairs,  the  circulus  vitiosus  is  evident.  This  method  is  not  to 
be  opposed  on  principle,  for  its  legitimacy  is  indisputable,  and  is, 
moreover,  proved  by  certain  definite  results;  but  we  must  again  urge 
the  greatest  caution,  since  the  standard  itself  by  which  the  correct- 
ness of  the  text  is  to  be  measured  —  I  mean  the  system  of  metrics  — 
can  be  gained  only  through  the  strongest  participation  of  the  critic's 
own  subjectivity.  The  very  foundations  of  the  structure  are  still 
in  question;  let  us  carefully  avoid  rearing  up  hasty  air-castles. 

Of  exegesis  almost  nothing  need  be  said;  its  laws  are  universally 
the  same,  as  are  also  the  particular  demands  made  upon  it  by  indi- 
vidual periods.  In  the  Old  Testament,  as  well  as  elsewhere,  the 
historical,  psychological,  and  aesthetic  sides  of  the  task  are  to-day 
much  more  strongly  emphasized  than  in  the  past.  But  surely  it  is 
but  just  to  call  particular  attention  to  the  mighty  service  which 
has  been  done  for  the  Old  Testament  in  the  last  one  hundred  and 
fifty  years  by  literary  criticism.  Seldom  will  such  difficult  problems 
be  assigned  to  it,  and  seldom  will  such  complete,  safe,  and  far-reach- 


RELATIONS   OF   OLD  TESTAMENT  SCIENCE        561 

ing  solutions  be  achieved.  The  history  of  this  work,  especially  of 
the  Hexateuch  criticism,  taken  at  a  bird's-eye  view,  where  individuals, 
with  their  weaknesses  and  their  limitations  vanish,  affords  a  truly 
classical  example  of  methodical  procedure.  Notice  the  possibilities, 
the  application  of  fundamentally  differing,  yes,  of  antagonistic,  critical 
methods,  and  the  repeated  tests  for  the  same  results.  And  throughout 
all  this,  Old  Testament  science  worked  without  precursors;  indeed,  it 
offered  incentive  to  all  other  fields  of  literature,  and  served  them  as 
prototype.  The  final  and  complete  victory  was  won  by  an  attack 
along  the  whole  line.  Abraham  Kuenen  and  Julius  Wellhausen  were 
successful  by  combining  the  internal  criticism  of  men  like  Reuss  and 
Vatke  with  the  formal  criticism  of  such  as  Astruc  and  Hupfeld. 
Everything  essential  now  stands  so  fast  that  the  dilettante  attacks 
from  outsiders  who  come  up  from  the  right  and  from  the  left  give  no 
cause  for  fear.  Nowadays  the  realistic  criticism,  essentially  founded 
upon  facts  of  the  religious  history  of  Israel,  holds  the  foreground, 
while  the  battle  chiefly  rages  about  the  prophets.  Here  now  and 
then  the  same  bold  sallies  of  discovery  are  undertaken  as  formerly 
in  the  investigation  of  the  historical  books.  It  may  be  questioned 
whether  we  shall  here  ever  attain  to  equally  positive  results  in  details; 
the  large  outlines  we  already  see  with  sufficient  clearness. 

The  advance  from  the  abstract  analysis  of  former  times,  which 
produced  only  negative  results,  to  the  living  synthesis,  the  insight 
into  the  political  and  religious  conditions  of  every  writing,  makes  it 
now  also  possible  to  produce,  instead  of  the  old-fashioned  introduc- 
tion to  the  Old  Testament,  a  history  of  Old  Testament  literature,  pro- 
ceeding in  chronological  order  and  showing  the  organic  development 
of  the  spirit  of  Israel.  The  work  which  Eduard  Reuss  planned  a 
half-century  ago,  and  carried  out  in  a  genial  experiment  a  quarter- 
century  ago,  we,  with  our  better  equipment,  should  not  now  hesitate 
to  take  in  hand  anew.  Such  a  genuine  history  of  fiterature  would 
of  necessity  demand  to  be  incorporated  into  the  whole  history  of 
the  people,  and  therewith  we  ourselves  enter  the  ranks  of  the  histo- 
rians. In  fact,  the  task  rests  upon  us,  and  upon  no  one  else,  of  writing 
the  history  of  that  nation,  in  itself  petty,  but  for  the  development  of 
humanity  extraordinarily  important,  of  old  Israel  during  the  one  and 
a  quarter  millenniums  of  its  pre-Christian  existence.  The  unusual 
difficulty  of  clearing  up  the  sources  makes  our  department  as  good  as 
inaccessible  to  a  student  of  ancient  history  who  has  not  been  trained 
in  our  school.  This  was  sufficiently  evinced  in  the  past  generation  by 
such  examples  as  M.  Duncker  and  L.  Ranke;  and  the  present,  espe- 
cially the  Assyriological,  school  of  historians  seems  to  rival  them  in 
proving  the  same  thing.  On  the  one  side  the  attack  is  made  by  the 
exponents  of  tradition,  who  apply  everything  discovered  from  the 
monuments  to  the  biblical  department  in  order  to  prop  up  the  old 


562  OLD   TESTAMENT 

ecclesiastical  tradition,  now  become  a  dogma  which  they  themselves 
have  not  outgrown.  From  the  other  side  the  onset  is  made  by  the 
mythologists,  who  endeavor  in  one  way  or  another  to  resolve  the  plain 
historical  facts  into  dull,  monotonous  trains  of  thought.  They  will 
all  offer  us  an  occasional  contribution;  but  in  the  main  their  work  will 
be  vain,  because  they  lack  training  for  the  right  use  of  the  sources  as 
well  as  comprehension  of  the  spirit  of  the  Old  Testament.  There- 
fore we  intend  to  hold  on  to  our  task  of  writing  the  history  of  the 
people  of  Israel  in  its  whole  extent,  and  to  perform  this  task  increas- 
ingly well.  In  this  connection  we  make  grateful  use  of  all  that  the 
related  sciences  of  every  kind  have  to  offer  —  geography,  ethnology, 
archaeology,  and  all  the  rest;  indeed,  we  feel  ourselves  everywhere  as 
fellow  workers,  and  hope  to  do  our  duty  to  the  utmost  of  our  power. 
We  follow  with  particular  interest  the  prodigious  progress  in  the  exca- 
vations on  the  ruined  sites  of  those  nations  which  lived  at  the  same 
time  as  Israel,  and,  in  part,  long  before;  the  new  branches  of  science 
which  have  sprung  up  from  these  researches  astonish  us  with  their 
magnificent  results.  We  are  often  reproached  with  the  opposite  atti- 
tude, with  indifference  and  apathy,  and  the  consequent  stagnation 
and  retrogression  in  our  own  work.  But  our  legitimate  caution 
does  not  deserve  such  censure.  Joyfully  as  we  hail  everything  which 
comes  forth  from  the  excavations,  we  still  have  no  desire  to  fill  the 
yawning  trenches  with  our  present  possession,  with  the  books  of 
the  Old  Testament.  Such  things  as  are  there  brought  up  are  at  first 
riddles,  sphinx  forms;  what  we  have  in  our  hands  speaks  to  us  a 
plain  language,  incapable  of  misconception.  We  gladly  accept  the 
correct  interpretation  of  the  monuments  as  a  substantial  enrichment 
of  our  own  possessions;  but  the  groundwork  for  an  understanding  of 
the  people  of  Israel  we  must  always  derive  from  what  has  been 
handed  down  by  this  people.  Overwhelmingly  great  as  was  the  phys- 
ical and  intellectual  power  of  the  world -empire  on  the  Euphrates 
and  the  Tigris;  superior  as  was  the  kingdom  on  the  Nile,  and  many 
another,  in  comparison  with  the  petty  kingdom  of  Israel,  we  still 
have  here,  in  spite  of  all  influences  from  the  most  diverse  directions, 
to  do  with  an  independent  national  individuality,  and  with  one  so 
energetic  and  so  vigorous  that  it  ultimately  set  up  for  itself  its  own 
laws  and  its  own  aims. 

This  is  preeminently  true  (to  return  to  the  kernel  of  the  matter 
and  to  the  beginning  of  this  survey)  of  the  religion  of  Israel,  in  which 
its  life  reached  its  supreme  and  exhaustive  expression.  Supported 
by  such  presuppositions  and  preliminaries  as  are  here  developed,  we 
can,  I  dare  say,  with  greater  confidence  than  at  the  beginning  of  this 
survey,  associate  ourselves  and  our  department  with  the  represent- 
atives of  the  general  science  of  religion;  and  this  in  spite  of  our 
Christian  theological  stamp,  which  we  neither  can,  nor  desire  to,  dis- 


RELATIONS   OF   OLD  TESTAMENT  SCIENCE        563 

claim.  We  strive,  in  fact,  to  understand  the  remarkable,  the  unique, 
appearance  of  the  religion  of  Israel  as  such  in  its  historical  devel- 
opment; we  are  determined  to  overlook  no  characteristic  which  is 
likely  to  distinguish  it,  and  to  make  it  more  possible  of  comprehen- 
sion. That  this  task  offers  the  greatest  difficulties  does  not  terrify 
us;  that  it  brings  us  into  contact  with  so  many  branches  of  science 
makes  us  proud.  But  we  need  many  associates,  and  they  must  be  of 
very  differing  qualities.  The  compass  of  the  work  is  so  great  that  it 
demands  division  of  labor.  No  one  should  be  accused  of  one-sidedness 
if  he  carefully  tends  his  own  particular  part  of  this  great  field,  and 
really  promotes  our  work.  But  let  no  superficial  dilettantism  find 
place  among  us.  As  we  older  men  slowly  withdraw  from  the  scene 
of  action,  may  the  men  of  the  new  generation  escape  the  danger  of 
scattering  their  forces,  and  strive  with  success  to  concentrate  on  every 
point,  however  small,  the  most  thorough  possible  scholarship! 


SECTION   D  — NEW  TESTAMENT 


SECTION   D  — NEW  TESTAMENT 


{Hall  1,  September  23,  10  o.  m.) 

Chairman:    Professor  Andrew  C.  Zenos,  McCormick  Theological  Seminary. 
Speakers:     Professor  Benjamin  W.  Bacon,  Yale  University. 

Professor  Ernest  D.  Burton,  University  of  Chicago. 
Secretary:  Professor  Clyde  W.  Votaw,  University  of  Chicago. 

The  Section  of  the  New  Testament  in  the  Department  of  History 
of  Rehgion  was  presided  over  by  Professor  Andrew  C.  Zenos  of  the 
McCormick  Theological  Seminary  of  Chicago,  Illinois.  In  introducing 
the  speakers  Professor  Zenos  said,  in  part,  that  this  Section  might 
be  regarded  as  the  central  one  of  the  whole  system  of  the  Congress 
of  Arts  and  Science.  The  religious  is  the  highest  nature  of  man,  and 
among  religions  Christianity  is  conceded  the  place  of  preeminence, 
even  from  the  point  of  view  of  the  purely  scientific  student  of  relig- 
ion. Christianity  emerges  in  a  definite  historical  setting  and  under 
clearly  ascertainable  conditions.  That  its  origin  is  buried  in  a  myth- 
ical age,  that  the  facts  regarding  its  foundation  and  first  stages  are 
lost  beyond  recovery,  is  a  theory  which  was  put  forth  and  defended 
with  great  acumen  by  the  brilliant  Hegelian  of  the  early  nineteenth 
century.  But  the  greater  the  ability  with  which  it  was  expounded 
and  urged,  the  more  certain  is  its  untenableness  since  its  complete 
collapse  and  abandonment.  Nothing  stands  better  established  than 
the  absolute  historicity  of  the  basal  facts  of  the  Christian  religion. 
The  field  was  much  larger  than  it  first  appeared.  First  into  one  part 
of  it,  then  into  another,  research  has  been  pushed  until,  out  of  the 
apparently  simple  and  single  study  of  the  New  Testament  as  a  book 
of  religious  instruction,  there  have  arisen  one  after  another  the 
associated  sciences  of  New  Testament  Philology,  New  Testament 
Archaeology,  New  Testament  Criticism  (Higher  and  Lower),  New 
Testament  History,  with  its  subdivisions  of  the  Life  of  Christ,  the 
Life  of  Paul,  the  Apostolic  Age,  New  Testament  Times,  and  finally  to 
crown  the  whole  group,  the  Biblical  Theology  of  the  New  Testament. 
A  great  science  has  truly  been  born.  A  living  interest,  always  existing 
in  the  first  writings  of  Christian  men,  has  found  a  legitimate  field 
and  a  large  and  diversified  expression.  New  Testament  science 
stands  to-day  before  the  world,  not  as  a  seeker  for  consideration 
upon  extra-scientific  grounds,  but  because  it  offers  a  great  and  su- 
premely important  field  to  its  votaries,  and  because  its  methods  are 
just  those  which  inspire  confidence  in  every  science  throughout  the 
whole  scheme. 


568  NEW  TESTAMENT 

But  our  humanity  is  one  and  indivisible,  and  we  cannot  stand 
here  as  mere  scientists  forgetting  what  the  New  Testament  means  to 
us  personally,  or  to  the  religious  community  to  which  we  belong.  It 
is  the  charter  of  their  existence  and  the  source  of  our  inspiration 
and  life.  As  the  artist,  who  studies  the  principles  of  his  technique 
or  the  chemistry  of  his  colors  and  thinks  he  has  done  justice  to  his 
work,  has  failed  as  an  artist,  so  the  Christian  scholar  cannot  investi- 
gate the  New  Testament  as  a  mere  field  for  historical  research 
and  be  satisfied  that  his  task  is  completed.  He  must  be  possessed 
by  the  spirit  of  its  rehgion  and  filled  with  the  sense  of  its  tran- 
scendent power. 


THE    RELATIONS    OF    NEW    TESTAMENT    SCIENCE    TO 
KINDRED  SCIENCES 

BY    BENJAMIN   WISNER    BACON 

[Benjamin  Wisner  Bacon,  Professor  of  New  Testament  Criticism  and  Exegesis, 
Yale  Divinity  School,  Yale  University,  b.  January  15,  1860,  Litchfield,  Con- 
necticut. B.A.  Yale,  1881;  B.D.  iUd.  1884;  M.A.  ibid.  1892;  D.D.  Western 
Reserve  University,  1892;  Litt.D.  Syracuse,  1894;  LL.D.  Illinois  College,  1904. 
Pastor  of  First  Church  (Congregational),  Old  Lyme,  Connecticut,  1884-89;  Pas- 
tor of  Congregational  Church,  Oswego,  New  York,  1889-96;  Professor  in  Yale 

Divinity  School,  1896 .  Member  of  Society  of  Biblical  Literature,  American 

School  of  Oriental  Research  in  Jerusalem.  Author  of  Genesis  of  Genesis;  Triple 
Tradition  of  the  Exodus;  Story  of  St.  Paul;  and  other  works.] 

Mr.  President,  and  Fellow  Scientists,  —  When  the  chairs  of 
New  Testament  science  in  our  principal  New  England  universities 
were  founded,  the  discipline  was  entitled  New  Testament  Criticism 
and  Interpretation.  At  that  time  "  criticism "  meant  scarcely  more 
than  the  establishment  of  the  exact  text  of  the  twenty-seven  canon- 
ical books;  "interpretation"  meant  the  grammatical  rendering  of 
the  strict  verbal  sense.  This  was  a  finality.  With  author's  text  and 
meaning  you  had  all  that  could  be  asked  without  impiety,  the  ulti- 
mate "word  of  God."  Relations  with  other  sciences  conformed  to 
this  estimate  of  our  relative  importance. 

To-day  we  may  still  employ  the  same  subdivision;  but  we  mean 
more  by  "criticism,"  more  by  "interpretation,"  and  much  more 
by  "the  word  of  God."  We  have  not  begun  to  think  of  our  science 
as  profane,  but  we  see  something  sacred  in  other  sciences. 

Criticism  now  includes  the  higher  as  well  as  the  lower.  It  traces 
the  antecedents  as  well  as  the  life-history  of  the  wTiting,  its  origin  as 
well  as  transmission,  derivation  of  thought  as  well  as  transcription  of 
words.  It  involves  even  the  genetic  study  of  ideas  older  than  any 
literature;  traditions,  beliefs,  in  which  no  author,  certainly  no  in- 
spired author,  can  claim  exclusive  rights.  Inevitably  this  widening 
of  scope  has  established  new  points  of  contact;  for  the  history  of 
ideas  is  even  less  tolerant  of  artificial  segregation  and  classification 
into  sacred  and  profane  than  the  history  of  institutions  and  events. 
Let  the  earlier  embodiment  be  written  or  oral,  be  the  ideas  clearly 
traceable  in  surviving  documents  of  parchment,  stone,  clay,  papyrus, 
or  only  in  institutions,  forms,  traditions;  in  either  case  the  modern 
method  leads  directly  into  the  wide,  free  ranges  of  the  history  of 
religious  thought. 

Even  textual  criticism  overflows  its  former  bounds.  To  Westcott 
and  Hort  a  clearly  extraneous  variant  was  almost  a  negligible  quantity. 
"Corruptions,"  except  as  they  might  furnish  a  clue  to  the  original, 


570  NEW  TESTAMENT 

only  detracted  from  the  value  of  a  manuscript.  Why  wish  to  know 
the  views  of  writers  not  inspired,  perhaps  even  heretical?  If  a  dis- 
tinguished classical  philologian  now  enters  our  field  to  reconstruct 
the  neglected  Western  form  of  the  text  and  give  us  a  new  apprecia- 
tion of  its  value,  advancing  the  curious  theory  of  two  inspired  texts, 
one  for  the  longitude  of  Antioch,  the  other  for  Rome,  we  shall, 
indeed,  do  better  to  return  to  Westcott  and  Hort  for  an  explanation 
of  the  origin  of  the  variants,  but  we  should  not  lose  our  new  sense 
of  their  historical  value.  Thanks  to  Professor  Budde  we  know  that 
the  doctrine  of  "survivals"  applies  in  textual  and  higher  criticism 
as  well  as  in  biology.  The  source  an  historian  has  employed  does  not 
at  once  cease  to  circulate.  It  is  only  gradually  superseded  by  the 
writing  ultimately  preferred.  In  the  mean  time  transcribers  will 
persistently  tend  to  complete,  expand,  or  assimilate  the  extracts  by 
comparison  of  the  original.  The  process  is  abundantly  illustrated 
in  the  scribal  treatment  of  New  Testament  loans  from  the  Septuagint. 
The  variants  in  this  case  display  the  characteristics  of  atavism,  or 
reversion  to  type;  they  may  give  the  pre-canonical  form.  We  know, 
in  fact,  that  the  most  extensive  and  important  of  the  Western  vari- 
ants, the  pericope  adulterae,  is  an  actual  extract  from  the  Gospel 
according  to  the  Hebrews.  Other  cases  also  can  be  identified,  which 
represent  "survivals"  from  the  extra-canonical,  if  not  pre-canonical 
literature.  This  explains  why  tte  important  variants  are  confined 
to  the  historical  books,  and  are  most  frequent  in  Luke-Acts,  a  nar- 
rative confessedly  based  on  earlier  documents.  Historical  value  may 
even  attach  to  corruptions  reflecting  only  later  ideas. 

But  pass  to  the  higher  criticism,  which  asks.  Whence  has  the  author 
himself  his  ideas  and  materials?  Here  the  field  is  full  of  "survivals" 
to  be  traced  in  their  origin  as  well  as  in  their  later  adaptation.  In 
relation  to  Old  Testament  literature  and  history  this  discipline  once 
bore  the  name  "Connections."  Earlier,  and  for  a  wider  range,  it 
was  called  "Introduction." 

Let  it  not  be  counted  disrespect  to  the  great  names  of  Baur  and 
Holtzmann  if  we  demur  to  their  definition  of  "  introduction  "  as  "Crit- 
icism of  the  Canon."  That  issues  in  treatment  of  the  subject  as  a 
branch  of  polemics.  But  the  canon  is  no  more  a  subject  for  scientific 
criticism  than  the  particular  selection  of  books  which  my  religious 
taste  and  personal  experience  may  lead  me  to  place  on  my  shelf  of 
private  devotions.  These  twenty-seven  are  the  books  which  the 
fathers  found  to  embody  their  religious  faith  and  to  nourish  their 
religious  life.  Vox  ecclesiae,  vox  dei.  Of  what  use  to  question  their 
taste?  Popes  and  councils  are  the  only  judges  of  canonicity. 

Nor  can  we  agree  vdth.  Jiilicher,  who  defines  "  introduction,"  as 
"  that  branch  of  the  history  of  literature  which  deals  with  the  New 
Testament  writings."    The  New  Testament  books  do  not  form  a 


RELATIONS  OF   NEW  TESTAMENT  SCIENCE       571 

literary  class.  The  biblical  critic  is  not  an  art  taster.  Matthew  Arnold 
has  indeed  entered  our  field,  but  as  an  amateur.  We  higher  critics 
are  not  concerned  with  the  history  of  literature,  but  of  religion; 
and  we  treat  the  canonical  books  as  sources  for  that  history.  They 
are  to  us  an  expression  of  the  leading  type  of  spiritual  life  in  its  pro- 
gressive phases.  The  rank  and  station  of  each  element  of  our  science, 
and  of  the  science  as  a  whole,  is  measured  by  its  service  to  this  end. 
Introduction  —  the  higher  criticism,  analytical  and  constructive  — 
is  subsidiary,  as  truly  as  the  lower.  Criticism  exists  for  interpretation, 
and  interpretation  for  the  sake  of  the  history  of  religious  thought 
and  life,  for  that  is  the  "word  of  God."  The  revelation  of  God  is 
not  in  the  letter,  but  in  the  life;  and  because  the  life  cannot  be 
isolated,  but  is  a  spiritual  evolution  of  the  race,  therefore  we  find  our 
point  of  contact  with  kindred  sciences  in  the  field  of  the  history  of 
religion,  the  phenomenology  of  spiritual  life. 

The  development  of  the  higher  criticism,  so  distinctive  a  feature 
of  the  century  just  closed,  cutting  quietly  away  the  whole  ground  of 
contention  from  what  we  used  to  designate  the  "  conflict  of  science  and 
religion,"  has  been  in  this  aspect  simply  a  removal  of  misunder- 
standings. The  gradual  adoption  of  the  historical  point  of  view  has 
brought  the  Bible  into  the  field  of  science  without  withdrawing  it 
from  that  of  devotion. 

For  what  we  found  true  of  the  term  "criticism"  is  true  in  still 
higher  degree  of  the  term  "interpretation."  Its  history  during 
the  past  half-century  has  been  one  of  immeasurable  enlargement. 
From  having  been  almost  exclusively  grammatical  and  philological, 
often  minutely  verbal,  exegesis  has  become  historical.  From  apolo- 
getic it  has  become  objective.  At  first  context  was  disregarded; 
then  it  was  seen  to  be  essential  to  the  historical  sense;  then  the  idea 
was  widened.  Now  we  no  longer  mean  by  context  merely  the  next 
phrase  or  adjoining  sentence.  Not  the  whole  book  or  author's 
works  includes  it  all.  The  context  which  throws  fullest  light  upon 
the  meaning  is  the  whole  complex  of  contemporary  life  and  thought, 
its  inheritance  from  the  past,  its  problems,  its  aspirations,  its  pre- 
possessions, its  whole  mode  of  looking  at  things.  So  exegesis  too  has 
found  God's  world  not  a  world  of  isolation.  It  is  incomplete  without 
the  history  and  sciences  once  called  "profane."  "Continuity," 
"  evolution,"  have  become  watchwords  in  this  field  also. 

It  may  be  an  independent  phenomenon;  it  may  be  an  effect  of 
the  Zeitgeist  thus  to  broaden  New  Testament  science,  compelling 
it  to  interconnect  itself  with  kindred  studies  and  find  its  place  in  the 
general  stream  of  the  history  of  religion.  Such,  at  all  events,  is  the 
fact,  to  our  immeasurable  uplift  and  inspiration.  The  age  which  saw 
the  rise  of  the  higher  criticism  could  not  fail  to  give  us,  as  it  did, 
our  first  great  histories  of  New  Testament  times,  and  of  Jewish 


572  NEW  TESTAMENT 

and  Hellenistic  religious  thought.  It  gave  us  for  the  first  time  a 
succession  of  great  hives  of  Jesus  and  of  Paul. 

The  very  fact  that  in  this  World's  Congress  of  Arts  and  Science 
we  are  gathered,  not  in  connection  with  the  Division  of  "Social 
Culture,"  as  a  sub-department  under  the  head  of  "Rehgion,"  but 
under  the  Division  "Historical  Science,"  as  a  branch  of  the  "His- 
tory of  Religion,"  shows  appreciation  of  the  facts. 

The  group  of  canonized  writings  to  which  we  apply  the  processes 
of  criticism  and  interpretation  are  an  emanation  of  the  religious 
thought  and  life  of  the  race  in  the  period  of  its  greatest  manifestation. 
It  presents  both  direct  and  indirect  reflections  of  this  life,  but  it  is 
impossible  that  we  should  understand  either  the  direct  reflection 
attempted  in  the  Synoptic  Gospels  and  Acts,  or  the  unintended 
reflection  which  lends  to  the  Epistles,  Apocalypse,  and  Johannine 
writings  their  highest  value,  if  we  study  them  apart  from  the  broad 
stream  of  contemporary  religious  development,  both  Jewish  and 
Gentile.  For,  as  we  well  know,  in  that  great  age  of  the  humanities, 
when  national  barriers  had  broken  down.  Oriental  religion,  Greek 
philosophy,  art  and  literature,  and  Roman  government  had  become 
the  common  property  of  a  united  race,  religious  thought  and  practice 
were  also  intermingled  as  never  before.  It  is  the  distinctive  feature 
of  New  Testament  science  in  our  time  that  it  recognizes  this  inter- 
connection of  Christianity  in  its  origins  with  contemporary  religious 
life  and  literature,  as  has  not  been  the  case  since  the  great  church 
historian  of  the  fourth  century  gave  us,  as  a  pendent  to  his  critical 
review  of  Christian  literature,  the  Preparatio  Evangelica. 

I  might  mention  as  symptoms  of  the  wider  outlook  here  at  home 
the  new  chair  of  the  History  of  Religions,  by  which  Harvard  has 
created  a  meeting-point  for  its  two  departments  of  religious  literatures 
and  of  divinity.  Harvard  has  wisely  placed  in  it  a  Yale  man,  the  fore- 
most biblical  scholar  of  America,  and  first  speaker  of  this  Depart- 
ment. Had  the  means  been  forthcoming,  Yale  would  probably  have 
anticipated  her  elder  sister;  for  the  aim  is  identical  in  both  univers- 
ities. Nor  is  it  exceptional.  The  joint  establishment,  by  cooperation 
of  our  greater  universities  in  East  and  West,  of  an  annual  intercol- 
legiate lectureship  on  the  history  of  religions  bears  witness  to  the 
same. 

Once  for  all  New  Testament  science  has  become  a  branch  of  the 
history  of  religion;  its  canonical  books  are  no  longer  an  end,  but 
a  means.  We  employ  them  as  sources  to  comprehend  the  life  and 
thought  which  produced  them.  Is  this  disloyalty  to  Christian  prin- 
ciple? Far  from  it.  It  is  only  what  might  have  been  done  eighteen 
centuries  ago  if  the  church  had  appreciated  as  clearly  as  our  Fourth 
Evangelist  the  true  attitude  of  Jesus  toward  the  bibliolatry  of  the 
synagogue :  "  Ye  search  the  Scriptures  because  ye  think  that  in  them 


RELATIONS   OF   NEW  TESTAMENT  SCIENCE       573 

ye  have  eternal  life;  and  these  are  they  that  testify  of  me;  but  ye 
will  not  come  unto  me  that  ye  may  have  life."  That  is  a  just  and 
genuine  reflection;  for  to  Jesus  even  the  written  revelation  of  his 
own  people,  the  divine  Torah  of  Moses,  was  secondary  to  that  "  in  the 
creation  of  God,"  in  nature's  bounty  and  beauty,  and  in  the  sense  of 
fatherhood  and  sonship.  To  Jesus  the  life  was  the  revelation;  Scrip- 
ture was  a  means  of  approach  to  it,  and  was  tested  by  it. 

But  as  symptoms  of  the  times,  let  us  survey  rather  some  results 
of  recent  scholarship  that  are  ours  only  as  they  belong  to  Christen- 
dom. The  trend  will  be  found  unmistakably  "religionsgeschichtlich." 
We  appreciate  the  splendid  contributions  which  have  come  of  late  to 
Hellenistic  grammar  and  philology,  from  the  study  of  papyri  and 
inscriptions  and  the  scanty  literature  of  Palestinian  Aramaic. 
Instead  of  "  Hebraisms  "  we  hear  now  of  "  Aramaisms,"  "  Septuagint- 
isms,"  and  "Semiticisms."  We  are  even  called  upon  to  surrender 
our  belief  that  there  is  such  a  thing  as  Semitic  Greek,  distinguishable 
from  the  KOiv-q,  and  that  style  and  idiom  are  not  philologically  the 
same  in  the  preface  as  in  the  ensuing  two  chapters  of  Luke.  This 
demand  belongs  with  the  statements  classified  by  the  newspapers  as 
"important  if  true."  After  all  the  main  advance  is  along  other  lines, 
intersecting  those  of  explorers  from  other  fields.  We  do  not  forget 
Deissmann  and  Dalman,  Moulton,  Redpath,  or  Blass.  Ramsay's 
studies  of  the  political,  geographical,  and  social  relations  of  Asia 
Minor  make  us  feel  less  crippled  by  the  loss  of  Mommsen,  however 
much  we  desiderate  Mommsen's  historico-critical  judgment.  Percy 
Gardner  brings  to  bear  his  knowledge  of  Greek  religious  thought  and 
institutions  to  present  an  Historical  View  of  the  New  Testament,  and 
as  a  third  contribution  from  a  like  quarter  Jane  Harrison's  Prole- 
gomena to  the  Study  of  Greek  Religion  puts  in  its  true  light  the  great 
reversion  to  the  mythology  of  the  ancient  dithonic  divinities  which 
accompanies  the  decay  of  Greek  national  life  and  the  spread  of 
religious  mysticism  in  the  rites  of  mystery-rehgion.  Frazer's  Golden 
Bough  sets  the  example  of  a  study  in  comparative  religion,  disproving 
the  notion  that  the  conception  of  a  deliverer-god,  incarnate,  dying 
and  rising  again,  effecting  the  redemption  of  humanity  by  sacra- 
mental union  with  himself,  is  the  monopoly  of  any  race  or  tribe.  Can 
the  student  of  Paulinism  and  its  development  on  Greek  soil  be  indif- 
ferent to  such  research  as  this? 

Years  ago  Lightfoot's  essay  on  St.  Paul  and  Seneca  made  the 
existence  in  both  of  a  common  element  of  Stoic  doctrine  indisputable. 
Grafe  now  helps  to  set  us  on  the  right  track  by  demonstrating  Paul's 
affinity  with  and  employment  of  the  Jewish-Stoic  Book  of  Wisdom, 
and  Tennant  strengthens  the  chain  by  tracing  the  development  of 
the  Doctrine  of  the  Fall  and  Original  Sin,  that  seems  so  strange  an 
innovation  on  the  teaching  of  Jesus,  through  the  post-canonical 


574  NEW  TESTAMENT 

Jewish  literature  down  to  II  Esdras  and  the  Talmud.  Pfleiderer,  chief 
of  our  modern  students  of  PauUnism,  revises  his  Geschichte  des  Ur- 
christenthums ,  largely  to  make  use  of  Cumont's  Textes  et  Documents 
relatijs  au  Mithracisme,  and  shows  how  mystery-religion  not  only 
paved  the  way  for  Paul,  but  furnished  him  with  forms  of  thought  and 
even  of  ritual. 

Still  deeper  must  we  penetrate  for  the  origins  of  the  religious 
dualism  which  colors  the  non-Pauline  books.  The  mixed  and  seething 
chaos  of  Syrian  magic,  theosophy,  and  mysticism,  out  of  which 
appears  that  gnosticism  which  soon  rivals  Christianity  in  its  claims 
upon  the  religious  thought  of  the  Graeco-Roman  world,  seems  almost 
to  defy  analysis.  But  Friedlander's  Vorchristliche  Gnosticismus  has 
obtained  now  a  wider  and  sounder  basis  of  fact  from  Brandt's  schol- 
arly study  of  the  Mandaean  Religion  with  its  astonishing  survivals  of 
the  mythology  and  legend-lore  of  the  mixed  peoples  of  the  East. 
Nor  are  there  wanting  investigators  of  the  more  doubtful  analogies  of 
Buddhistic  and  Egyptian  religious  thought  and  literature. 

There  will  be  pursuit  of  false  clues,  and  premature  conclusions, 
among  which  I  must  venture  to  reckon  our  own  lamented  L.  L. 
Paine's  resort  to  Philo  and  the  Alexandrian  school  as  ultimate  source 
of  Paul's  Logos  doctrine;  as  if  Philo  himself  were  not  rendering  into 
the  language  of  the  schools  that  older  Palestinian  form  of  cosmological 
speculation  which  he,  as  well  as  Paul,  found  already  reflected  in  the 
Hochmah  Hterature  with  its  Hebraized  Stoicism,  and  its  hypostasis 
of  creative  and  redemptive  Wisdom.  No;  the  Evolution  of  Trin- 
itarianism  was  a  far  less  simple  matter  than  a  patch  of  Philo  and  a 
patch  of  Paul.  Still,  like  the  other  great  racial  religious  ideas,  it  was 
an  evolution  —  and  all  the  more  divine  for  that.  It  belongs  to  the 
phenomenology  of  religion.  Therefore,  Gunkel  and  Bousset  and 
Charles  seem  to  me  to  be  working  the  richer  lodes  of  our  day,  and 
certainly  our  Congresses  and  Conventions  are  "religionsgeschicht- 
lich."  At  Stockholm  in  1897  it  was  Chantepie  de  la  Saussaye  who 
discussed  Religious  Research  by  the  Comparative  Method,  and  he 
was  followed  by  Arnold  Meyer,  who  reported  the  progress  of  our 
science  under  the  title  Die  moderne  Forschung  uber  die  Geschichte  des 
Urchristenthums;  but  the  burden  of  his  admirable  summary  must  be 
given  in  his  own  language:  "  Es  gilt,  das  Urchristentum  hineinzustel- 
len  in  einen  grosseren  Zusammenhang,  seine  Geschichte  als  einen 
Teil  der  Religions-,  Kultur-  und  Menschheitsgeschichte  iiberhaupt 
zu  begreifen,  sein  Werden  und  Wachsen  zu  beobachten,  innere  und 
aussere  Vorgange  in  ihrer  Wechselwirkung  zu  betrachten."  Or, 
to  borrow  Meyer's  own  quotation  from  Sabatier,  "To  understand 
Christianity,  implies  a  clear  and  comprehensive  grasp  both  of  the 
bond  which  unites  it  with  the  religious  development  of  mankind,  and 
of  the  vital  element  which  distinguishes  it;  also  of  the  sequence  and 


RELATIONS   OF   NEW  TESTAMENT  SCIENCE       575 

character  of  the  forms  which  it  has  assumed."  A  better  definition  of 
the  relation  of  our  science  to  kindred  sciences  cannot  be  formulated. 
It  was  also  well  to  emphasize,  as  Meyer  has  done  from  the  very  start, 
what  is  that  vital,  distinctive  element  of  Christianity,  which  has 
enabled  it  to  take  up  and.  assimilate  congenial  elements  from  sur- 
rounding soil,  instead  of  being  itself  assimilated.  "  Not  primarily  the 
belief  in  Jesus  as  the  Son  of  God,  but  Jesus'  own  belief  in  his  mission 
and  his  relation  to  God  his  Father."  "Not  primarily  the  belief  in 
Jesus  as  the  Son  of  God,"  because  the  gospel  as  Paul  preached  it  is 
already  secondary.  But  the  gospel  of  Jesus  is  for  us  approachable  only 
through  the  secondary  gospel,  whose  distinctive  feature  is  certainly 
this  belief. 

It  is  also  significant  from  this  standpoint  to  note  how  just  a  year 
ago  Pfleiderer,  at  the  International  Congress  of  Theologians  at 
Amsterdam,  defined  the  preliminary  problem  of  Paulinism.  His 
address  was  entitled  Das  Christusbild  des  urchristlichen  Glauhens  in 
religionsgeschichtlicher  Beleuchtung;  and  he  too  lays  chief  stress  upon 
the  need  for  reaching  the  distinctive  element  in  the  Gospel  of  Paul 
through  its  embodiment  in  conceptions  and  forms  current  in  both 
Gentile  and  Jewish  religious  life.  For  Paul  was  the  natural  heir  of  the 
latter,  but  adoptive  heir  of  the  former  also,  and  through  him  more 
than  all  others  Christianity  became  endowed  with  the  great  Greek 
and  Stoic  ideas  of  a  creative  Logos,  a  mystic  union,  sacramentally 
renewed,  of  the  human  spirit  in  its  weak  and  corruptible  embodiment 
with  the  life-giving  divine  spirit,  and  of  a  race  brotherhood,  or  new 
social  order  of  humanity.  This  absorption  by  Christianity  of  the 
aspirations  and  cravings  expressed  in  the  contemporary  world-move- 
ments of  religious  thought  Pfleiderer  has  summed  up  as  follows: 
"  The  postulate  of  a  Deliverer-god  (6e6<;  a-wr^p)  who  shall  guarantee 
both  the  salvation  of  the  individual  soul  in  the  hereafter,  and  also  the 
dominion  of  redemption  and  peace  for  the  social  commonwealth  on 
this  earth,  was  already  present  in  the  visions  and  cravings  of  the 
Gentile  world  at  the  beginning  of  our  era;  the  question  was  only, 
Whence  should  it  obtain  the  certainty  of  his  real  existence?  The 
Christology  of  the  Church  gave  the  answer  by  welding  into  a  personal 
unity  the  Messiah-king  of  the  earthly  kingdom  of  God  and  the  mysti- 
cal conqueror  of  death  and  dispenser  of  life.  Thus  arose  the  ideal  form 
of  the  eternal  Son  of  God,  who  historically  became  man,  died,  passed 
through  the  underworld  overcoming  Death  and  the  Devil,  rose  victo- 
rious, ascended  to  heaven,  sits  on  the  right  hand  of  God  as  Sovereign 
of  the  world,  and  is  to  come  upon  the  clouds  to  judge  the  quick  and 
dead.  All  these  doctrinal  conceptions  are  also  found  already  present 
in  the  religious  cults  of  decadent  antiquity,  here  and  there,  in  Orient 
and  Occident,  in  the  varied  forms  of  Jewish  apocalypse,  Oriental  mys- 
ticism and  Gnosis,  Greek  speculation  and  Roman  emperor-worship. 


576  NEW  TESTAMENT 

Only  the  unifying  subject  was  wanting  for  the  synthesis  of  these 
predicates,  the  nucleus  of  crystallization,  about  which  this  ferment- 
ing, chaotic  mass  of  religious  ideas  might  shape  itself  into  a  new  world 
of  faith  and  hope  comprising  both  the  present  and  the  hereafter.  This 
point  of  unification  was  supplied  in  the  person  of  Jesus,  the  Galilean 
national  Redeemer  and  King  of  the  Jews,  who  through  the  cross 
became  the  World-Redeemer  and  King  of  the  universal  kingdom  of 
God." 

Such  utterances  make  plain  the  trend  of  New  Testament  science 
in  our  day.  Both  criticism  and  interpretation  have  become  historical, 
and,  as  subsidiary  to  the  history  of  religion,  have  been  brought  into 
closest  contact  with  kindred  sciences. 

It  remains  to  be  seen  to  what  extent  the  growing  sense  of  what 
is  held  in  common  enables  us  to  differentiate  with  greater  precision 
that  which  is  distinctive  and  vital;  absorbent,  but  not  absorbed. 

Since  Baur  we  apprehend  Christianity  historically  as  made  up  of 
the  Petrine  and  the  Pauline  factors.  What,  then,  is  essential  Paulin- 
ism  and  essential  Petrinism?  Light  comes  when  we  begin  to  see 
that  Paul  is  more  than  a  Rabbi,  far  more  than  a  Rabbi  of  that  period 
of  anti-Christian  reaction,  after  the  destruction  of  the  temple,  which 
so  dominates  our  conceptions  of  Rabbinism.  Paul  may  or  may  not 
owe  to  Gamaliel,  the  great  latitudinarian  of  his  age  and  student  of 
Greek  literature,  something  of  his  later  broad-minded  attitude  toward 
"whatsoever  things  are  pure,  are  noble,  are  worthy,  are  of  good 
report."  Anyway  we  must  appreciate  his  sense,  not  only  of  a  divine 
summons  in  his  conversion  to  an  "apostleship  to  the  Gentiles," 
but  of  having  been  even  before  it  "set  apart,"  like  Jeremiah,  "from 
his  mother's  womb  to  be  a  prophet  to  the  Gentiles."  Paul  regarded 
the  ideas  imbibed  in  his  pre-Christian  career  as  a  providential  equip- 
ment for  the  proclamation  of  his  world-gospel.  He  is  touched  as  no 
Palestinian  Jew  could  be  with  the  Gentiles'  "groping  after*  God,  if 
haply  they  might  feel  after  him  and  find  him."  He  has  a  feeling  of 
the  burden  of  human  guilt,  of  the  inheritance  from  Adam  of  a  sin- 
polluted,  weakened  nature  such  as  no  Jewish  writings  reveal  save 
those  deeply  impregnated  with  the  moral  earnestness,  and  at  the 
same  time  the  pessimistic  dualism  of  the  Stoic  school,  the  Wisdom 
literature  which  evinces  the  contact  of  Judaism  with  Hellenism  on 
its  higher  levels.  Paulinism  is  only  half  intelligible  until  we  know 
how  other  national  religions  besides  Judaism  were  disintegrating 
under  the  double  solvent  of  a  world-empire  and  a  cosmopolitan 
philosophy,  and  giving  place  to  individual  religions,  distinguished 
like  Christianity  by  their  adaptation  of  ancient  beliefs  to  a  sacra- 
mental mysticism  aspiring  to  participation  in  the  divine  nature,  their 
avatar  doctrines  of  the  redeeming  Saviour-god,  their  hope  of  personal 
immortality,  and  ideals  of  a  universal  brotherhood  of  believers. 


RELATIONS  OF   NEW  TESTAMENT  SCIENCE       577 

So,  too,  we  shall  fail  to  understand  the  more  conservative,  the 
Petrine  type  of  Christianity,  if  we  frame  our  ideas  of  popular  Judaism 
exclusively  on  the  basis  of  that  which,  after  the  extermination  of 
priestly  hierocracy  and  zealot  nationalists,  and  the  extrusion  of 
Christianity,  carried  reactionary  Pharisaism  to  unimpeded  control. 
The  doctrine  of  vicarious  atonement  is  so  far  from  being  a  Pauhne 
innovation,  that  in  its  simpler  form,  the  application  of  Isaiah  liii  to 
the  suffering  of  Jesus,  we  only  come  across  it  once  in  all  the  Pauline 
Epistles,  and  that  is  not  where  Paul  is  giving  his  own  doctrine,  but 
the  teaching  "received"  by  him  at  his  conversion,  "how  that  Christ 
died  for  our  sins  according  to  the  Scriptures."  The  doctrine  of  the 
atonement  is  pre-Pauline.  In  the  simple,  non-ethical  form  of  sub- 
stitutionary expiation  it  is  a  doctrine  of  IV  Maccabees,  of  I  Peter  and 
perhaps  of  I  John;  but  Paul  does  not  so  much  as  refer  to  the  Isaian 
Suffering  Servant.  Needless  to  say,  it  plays  no  part  in  the  message 
of  Jesus.  Yet  it  is  so  great  a  factor  in  Christianity  that  Ritschl  can 
say:  The  doctrine  of  the  atonement  is  the  Gospel.  Paul  superim- 
poses upon  it  his  "moral  view"  by  adding  the  conception  of  mystical 
death  and  resurrection  with  Christ;  but  its  origin  is  Petrine. 

Almost  as  much  might  be  said  of  what  we  used  to  designate  the 
"higher  Christology"  of  Paul,  which  has  two  roots,  the  apocalyptic 
and  speculative  or  cosmological,  both  tinctured  by  Hellenism. 
There  is  not  the  slightest  consciousness  in  Paul's  epistles  of  any 
occasion  for  defending  his  Logos  doctrine  —  for  such  it  is  in  all  but 
the  name  —  against  Ebionite  conceptions  in  the  mother-church. 
He  argues  strenuously  against  a  kind  of  Arianism  which  commits 
the  illogical  compromise  of  assigning  to  the  Son  a  place  among 
angels,  principalities,  and  powers,  where  he  is  neither  human  nor 
divine;  but  there  is  no  sign  that  Paul's  doctrine  of  the  divinity  of 
Christ  was  obnoxious  to  the  Twelve,  nor  even  that  his  assumption 
of  Christ's  preexistence  as  Second  Adam  gave  offense.  On  the  con- 
trary his  bloody  persecution  of  the  Way,  "even  unto  foreign  cities," 
seems  already  to  presuppose  a  cult  Paul  could  honestly  consider  as 
violating  the  prohibition  of  Deut.  xiii,  against  teaching  to  serve  other 
gods."  Again  we  must  say  the  doctrine  of  divine  sonship  is  not 
derived  from  Paul's  cosmology  and  Wisdom  doctrine,  but  vice  versa. 
The  order  is  first  the  gospel  of  Jesus  the  Son  of  God,  second  the 
Synoptic  superimposition  from  apocalyptic  sources  of  the  Son  of 
Man,  third  the  Pauline  Second  Adam  in  opposition  to  a  type  of 
Arianism  before  Arius,  merging  into  the  Johannine  Logos  doctrine. 

Gunkel's  Schopfung  und  Chaos  was  one  of  the  epoch-making  books 
to  teach  us  not  to  judge  Judaism  as  it  was  in  the  days  of  Jesus  and 
Paul  by  documents  of  the  Rabbinic  period,  expurgated  and  altered 
by  censors  whose  special  object  was  to  prove  that  Christian  ideas 
never  had  the  slightest  justification  in  the  authentic  and  orthodox 


578  NEW  TESTAMENT 

teaching.  R,  H.  Charles's  editions  of  the  apocalyptic  and  pseudepi- 
graphic  writings,  and  Kautzsch's  translations  are  compelling  us  to 
see  something  more  of  Judaism  than  what  its  official  defenders  hold 
up  for  us  to  see  in  the  Talmud  and  the  officially  delimited  canon. 
The  ideal  of  the  religious  purists,  attained  after  all  disturbers  of  the 
peace  had  been  cast  out,  was  by  no  means  the  actuality  of  the  earlier 
time.  My  colleague  at  Yale,  Professor  F.  C.  Porter,  once  pointed  out 
that  the  attitude  of  the  prophets  toward  the  Messianic  hope  of  their 
time  is  not  that  of  introducing  a  new  truth.  They  merely  criticise 
and  refine  an  accepted  popular  expectation.  In  the  period  of  apo- 
calypse this  popular  hope  appears  with  further  accretions  from  the 
crude  mythology  of  popular  syncretism,  whose  Gentile  affinities 
have  been  shown  by  Brandt,  Gunkel,  and  Bousset.  The  rabbinic 
censors  of  Jamnia  and  Tiberias  made  easier  work  of  the  later  apo- 
calyptic literature  by  excluding  it  from  the  canon  altogether.  But 
the  Gospels  move  in  an  atmosphere  saturated  with  the  apocalyptic 
ideas  of  the  post-canonical  literature,  and  even  Paul,  the  critical 
Rabbi,  rejoices  in  his  "visions  and  revelations  of  the  Lord." 
Apocalypse  is  the  very  root  of  his  religious  life,  his  cosmology  is 
reflective. 

The  teaching  of  Jesus  presupposes  a  religious  life  and  thought 
already  affected  to  the  core  by  the  antithesis  of  a  present  and  future 
world,  and  by  a  morbid  supernaturalism  into  which  he  infuses  the 
antidote  of  a  simple  and  teachable  faith,  seeing  God  in  things  as  they 
are. 

So  it  comes  that  the  portrait  of  contemporary  Judaism  requires  to 
be  repainted,  as  well  as  that  of  Hellenism.  The  Petrine  gospel,  too, 
has  a  far  broader  substructure  than  mere  Old  Testament  religion.  The 
transition  from  the  prophets  to  the  period  of  the  New  Testament  is 
a  transition  to  a  world  imbued  with  a  sense  of  race-unity,  conscious 
of  a  world-order  under  a  single  supreme  Being,  aspiring  to  individual 
immortality.  The  mere  change  from  national  supremacy  to  individual 
life  in  the  world  to  come  as  the  goal  of  religious  hope  is  revolutionary. 
If,  then,  Pauline  Christianity  is  but  half  intelligible  without  the  Book 
of  Wisdom  and  II  Esdras,  what  can  we  make  of  Petrine  without  the 
literature  which  rabbinic  Judaism  repudiated  when  it  cast  off  the 
Minim  and  all  their  works?  We  have  need  that  Baldensperger 
rewrite  his  Messianisches  Selbsthevmsstsein  Jesu,  devoting  a  full 
volume  to  Die  Messianischapokahjptischen  Hoffnungen  des  Juden- 
thums,  that  Charles  should  give  us  his  Critical  History  of  the  Doctrine 
of  a  Future  Life  in  Israel  (1899),  and  Volz  his  Jiidische  Eschatologie. 
Our  understanding  of  Petrinism  required  all  the  researches  of  Well- 
hausen,  Lietzmann,  and  our  own  Nathaniel  Schmidt,  on  the  origin 
and  significance  of  the  title  Son  of  Man.  But  these  were  partial  con- 
tributions.    The  comprehensive  need  was  that  the  great  work  of 


RELATIONS  OF   NEW  TESTAMENT  SCIENCE       579 

Gfrorer,  already  lifted  to  a  plane  of  superb  scholarship  by  Schiirer, 
should  be  still  further  advanced  by  Bousset's  Religion  des  Juden- 
thums  im  neutestamentlichen  Zeitalter  (1902),  and  that  the  ensuing 
year,  the  year  just  past,  should  see  the  issue  by  Bousset  and  Gunkel 
of  a  series  of  Forschungen  zur  Religion  und  Liter atur  des  Alien  und 
Neuen  Testaments,  beginning  with  GunkePs  demonstration,  not  in  a 
spirit  of  depreciation,  but  as  an  evidence  of  its  vitality  and  adapt- 
ation to  the  function  of  a  world-religion,  of  the  syncretistic  origin 
of  Christianity.  His  monograph  is  well  entitled:  Zum  religionsge- 
schichtlichen  Verstdndnis  des  Neuen  Testaments. 

1  must  deal  briefly  with  the  question  of  the  distinctive  vital  factor 
in  the  gospel  of  Paul,  of  Peter,  of  Jesus.  It  is  more  nearly  related 
to  the  subject  of  my  colleague.  Professor  Burton,  than  to  mine. 

The  stride  from  the  relatively  simple  Gospel  of  Peter,  reflected  in 
substance  by  the  Synoptists,  to  the  Gospel  of  Paul,  is  a  prodigious 
one;  so  great  that  the  Greek  churches,  indoctrinated  in  Paul's 
speculative,  mystical  presentation  of  the  spiritual  Christ,  with  in- 
tentional subordination  of  the  historic  Jesus,  might  well  have  been 
expected  to  go  the  way  of  the  Gnostic  theosophists,  or  Marcion,  out- 
Pauling  Paul,  separating  from  the  Palestinian  mother-church, 
where  emphasis  was  laid  rather  upon  historic  tradition  and  the  nova 
lex.  The  fact  that  Christian  theology  advanced  rather  upon  a  new 
plane  of  higher  unity,  doing  justice  to  both  Semitic  and  Hellenic 
conceptions,  is  due  to  the  inspired  genius  who  brings  forth  at  Ephesus, 
centre  of  the  Pauline  Greek  church,  the  so-called  Johannine  literature. 
In  the  Epistles  and  Gospel  of  John  true  Paulinism  reacts  against 
the  ultra-Hellenistic  tendencies,  combining  his  higher  Christology,  his 
mysticism,  and  his  rapidly  Hellenizing  eschatology  with  a  determined 
hold  upon  the  historic  manifestation  of  the  Logos  "in  the  flesh" 
and  insistence  upon  the  new-old  Commandment  of  Love.  The 
Johannine  literature  represents  Christianity  in  its  twofold  develop- 
ment from  the  Petrine  and  from  the  Pauline  type.  It  takes  the  via 
media  of  historic  tradition  and  ethical  earnestness,  combined  with 
freedom  and  spirituality  of  interpretation;  while  on  either  flank  are 
seen  the  extremes  of  Ebionite  reaction  and  Gnostic  syncretizing 
theosophy. 

The  Petrine,  the  Pauline,  and  the  Johannine  transitions  all  repre- 
sent great  strides  of  religious  thought;  too  great  for  our  compre- 
hension if  we  forget  the  conditions  of  the  age,  and  fail  to  realize 
that  what  Peter,  what  Paul,  what  the  Johannine  writer,  furnished, 
was  not  the  elements,  but  the  pole  of  condensation;  not  the  predi- 
cates, but  the  unifying  subject.  The  age  was  the  world's  transition 
from  national  to  world-religions,  an  age  of  the  interfusion  of  Orient 
and  Occident.  It  held  the  elements  of  new  racial  types  of  thought 
and  aspiration,  new  conceptions  of  the  world-order,  new  aspirations 


580  NEW  TESTAMENT 

for  the  individual  human  soul  in  its  relation  to  the  whole,  in  tem- 
porary mechanical  suspension. 

Paul's  cosmology,  as  we  have  seen,  is  built  upon  elements  of  largely 
Greek  and  Stoic  origin,  though  the  point  of  infiltration  is  to  be 
sought  further  back  than  we  used  to  seek  it,  back  of  Paul  himself  in 
the  Hochmah  writers  with  their  hypostatizing  of  the  divine  creative 
Wisdom,  and  the  effort  of  scribal  theology  to  adjust  its  growing  con- 
ception of  God's  transcendence  to  the  doctrine  of  his  special  provi- 
dence to  which  they  were  bound  by  the  past.  Paul  comes  by  his 
doctrine  of  the  preexistence  of  Christ  as  the  Divine  Wisdom,  not 
by  what  he  learned  from  Peter,  nor  even  from  Stephen,  but  from  the 
school  of  Gamaliel.  He  vitalizes  and  transfigures  it  by  the  religious 
and  moral  principle  of  Christianity:  Love  as  the  essence  of  the 
Creator's  motive  and  the  ethical  principle  of  the  creature.  The 
mystery  of  being,  hid  from  the  foundation  of  the  world,  but  now 
made  manifest,  is  that ''  God  in  love  foreordained  and  chose  us  in  the 
person  of  the  Beloved  to  be  an  adoption,"  "joint  heirs"  with  our 
Christ  of  the  Creation. 

Paul's  soteriology  and  connected  doctrines,  his  anthropology, 
doctrine  of  flesh  and  spirit,  redemption,  mystic  union  with  the 
Redeemer  in  death  and  life,  rest  largely  upon  conceptions  held  in 
common  with  mystery-religion:  the  avatar  doctrine  of  incarnation 
and  redemption,  the  ^cos  a-wTrjp,  and  IvOova-Laa-fio^  of  Greek  and 
Oriental  cults.  Here  too  the  primary  point  of  contact  was  earlier 
than  Paul's  time.  The  avatar  doctrine  of  Ephesians,  with  its  picture 
of  the  descent  and  ascent  of  the  Spirit  of  the  divine  Wisdom,  which, 
according  to  the  Book  of  Wisdom,  "fills  the  world,"  the  Spirit  of 
God  in  Christ  victorious  over  the  hostile  powers  of  the  underworld, 
ascending  to  God's  throne,  and  thence  filling  the  universe  of  animate 
being  with  the  emanation  of  its  own  vitality,  was  not  new  when  Paul 
advanced  it;  it  had  become  almost  as  much  a  part  of  Jewish  apo- 
calypse as  of  Greek  and  Oriental  mystery-religion.  Jesus'  parable  of 
the  Strong  Man  armed,  whose  goods  are  spoiled,  his  captives  freed 
by  the  Stronger  than  he,  in  which  the  fathers  see  an  allegory  of 
Christ's  descent  to  the  underworld  and  victory  over  its  hostile  powers, 
already  affects  Paul's  representation  of  the  triumphal  march  of  the 
Spirit  of  God  in  Christ  in  Ephesians  and  Colossians.  Paul  even  quotes 
therewith  a  pre-Christian  Jewish  apocalypse  whose  theme  is  this 
avatar  of  the  divine  Logos  awakening  dead  Israel,  while  the  Gospel 
of  Mark  itself  puts  Jesus  personally  in  the  place  of  that  Spirit  of  God 
which  in  the  original  form  is  victor  over  the  Strong  Man  armed. 

Paul  vitalized  a  Jewish-Oriental  interpretation  of  Ps.  68  by  identi- 
fying that  Wisdom  and  Power  of  God  which  takes  its  redeeming,  vic- 
torious way  from  heaven  to  earth,  from  earth  to  the  realm  of  death, 
delivering  death's  prisoners,  and  thence  to  the  right  hand  of  God, 


RELATIONS  OF  NEW  TESTAMENT  SCIENCE       581 

and  which  is  diffused  again  from  heaven  through  all  animate  creation, 
with  "  the  mind  which  was  in  Christ  Jesus,  who  humbled  himself  and 
took  on  him  the  form  of  a  servant  and  became  obedient  unto  the 
death  of  the  cross."  "Wisdom"  has  sometimes  for  Paul  also  the 
character  of  a  demiurgic  hypostasis,  a  divine  effulgence  as  in  the 
Book  of  Wisdom  identifiable  with  the  preexistent  Christ.  But  it  has 
not  the  Greek  type  of  simple  rationality  (vovs  or  Adyos).  It  is  the 
Hebrew  Wisdom,  redeeming  divine  Love,  going  forth  to  seek  and  save 
the  lost.  This  ethical  character  of  the  Pauline  Logos  doctrine  is 
retained  by  the  Johannine. 

Paul's  eschatology,  mediating,  by  his  doctrine  of  the  spiritual  body, 
between  the  crudities  of  the  undeveloped  Pharisean  idea  of  resurrec- 
tion as  a  return  to  flesh,  and  the  Greek  of  spiritual  immortality 
advances  from  the  idea  of  a  New  Jerusalem,  brought  from  heaven  to 
us,  to  that  of  a  departure  to  be  with  Christ.  It  gradually  supplants  the 
enlarged  Judaism  of  an  "  Israel  of  God  "  by  the  conception  of  a  com- 
monwealth of  redeemed  humanity  —  nay,  of  beings  on  earth  and 
in  heaven,  visible  and  invisible.  This  doctrine  was  not  a  creation 
ex  nihilo,  nor  was  Paul  the  first  Hellenist  nor  even  the  first  scribe  of 
the  kingdom  of  heaven  to  bring  forth  things  new  as  well  as  old.  It 
seems  a  long  step  from  the  brotherhood  Jesus  recognized  among  all 
who  made  it  their  aim  to  do  the  will  of  the  common  Father;  but  the 
principle  of  service  as  the  measure  of  greatness,  "  even  as  the  Son 
came  not  to  be  ministered  unto,  but  to  minister,"  must  inevitably 
reach  this  result  as  soon  as  it  assimilated  the  Stoic  principle  of  the 
organic  unity  of  the  race. 

The  single  point  of  crystallization  was  the  doctrine  that  "  Jesus  is 
Lord,"  the  Son  of  God;  and  to  Paul  that  involved  the  right  to  meta- 
morphose the  Son  of  David  and  Son  of  Man  of  the  Petrine  gospel  into 
the  Second  Adam,  the  dvOpwiros  iirovpavio^,  the  Oeos  a-wrrip,  of  his 
own. 

Were  we  in  like  manner  to  analyze  the  embodiment  of  the  Petrine 
gospel,  we  should  find  here  two  elements,  largely  from  the  popular 
religion  of  apocalypse,  but  largely  also  from  the  Galilean  peasant's 
sense  of  sin  and  hope  of  forgiveness,  crystallizing  around  the  nucleus 
of  a  new  gospel.  Jesus,  too,  from  the  nature  of  the  case,  built  upon 
and  embodied  at  least  the  conceptions  of  the  forgiveness  of  sin  and 
the  eschatology  of  apocalypse  in  his  teaching.  It  is  a  matter  of  serious 
doubt,  however,  whether  the  identification  of  himself  with  the  coming 
Son  of  Man  ever  formed  part  of  his  message.  For  my  own  part, 
I  cannot  accept  the  radical  view  which  wholly  denies  his  use  of  the 
term.  I  am  fully  convinced  that  its  wide  dissemination  in  the  synop- 
tic gospels  is  a  later  transformation  dating  from  the  period  when  the 
primitive  church  lived  in  the  atmosphere  of  apocalyptic  expectation. 
But  grant  that  the  grammatical  sense  of  the  Aramaic  words  be  sim- 


582  NEW  TESTAMENT 

ply  "the  man,"  or  "the  mortal,"  and  that  whatever  specific  sense 
attached  to  it  would  be  by  virtue  of  a  semi-mythologic  supernatural 
use  which  Jesus  cannot  have  applied  to  his  own  person,  I  still  fail  to 
see  why  he  may  not  have  employed  the  term  objectively  in  his 
eschatological  teaching,  of  the  coming  Judge,  the  purifier  and  refiner 
of  Israel  proclaimed  by  Malachi  and  by  John  the  Baptist.  We  must 
leave  it  to  criticism  whether  Jesus'  references  in  the  third  person 
to  this  apocalyptic  figure  were  not  transformed  after  his  resurrection 
into  a  representation  that  he  himself  would  thus  appear.  This  un- 
conscious change  would  require  but  slight  lapse  of  time  when  the 
elements  were  already  in  solution.  I  think,  however,  in  spite  of  this 
being  called  "the  self-designation  of  Jesus,"  that  we  may  already  say 
such  was  not  the  fact.  However  marked  the  apocalyptic  features  of 
his  preaching,  Jesus'  favorite  conception  of  his  mission,  and  his  rela- 
tion to  God  and  men  was  not  that  of  the  apocalyptic  figure  who 
comes  to  judgment  with  the  clouds. 

The  supreme  question,  as  Meyer  has  so  wisely  said,  is,  after  all,  the 
vital,  distinctive  element  in  the  gospel  of  Jesus  himself;  not  the 
doctrine  that  he  was  the  Son  of  God,  though  that  became  the  focus 
of  all  later  developments,  but  "  his  own  belief  in  his  mission,  and  his 
relation  to  God  his  Father."  This  relation  is  indeed  expressed  by  the 
designation  "the  Son,"  so  frequent  in  the  Fourth  Gospel,  but  not  by 
"the  Son  of  Man,"  and  not  by  the  "Son  of  God,"  as  usually  under- 
stood. 

We  learned  long  since  not  to  import  into  this  synoptic  title  the 
metaphysical  sense  of  the  Fourth  Gospel.  The  synoptic  writers,  and 
certainly  Jesus  himself,  in  relating  his  vocation  as  the  Son  of  God, 
were  not  dreaming  of  superhuman  attributes.  The  commentators 
tell  us  the  title  is  employed  in  the  "theocratic  sense"  as  belonging 
to  the  heir  of  the  throne  of  David;  but  while  there  are  in  Acts  two 
allusions  to  "  the  sure  mercies  of  David  "  and  the  promise  of  the  con- 
tinuance of  his  dynasty,  there  is  no  phase  of  the  Messianic  hope  which 
so  little  appeals  to  Jesus  as  this,  none  which  he  so  uniformly  antagon- 
izes and  suppresses.  Of  all  types  of  Messianism  nationalistic  zealotry 
was  least  that  of  his  mission.  How,  then,  does  Jesus'  sense  of  his 
Messianic  vocation  express  itself  in  the  form  of  the  Bath  Qol  at  his 
baptism,  "  Thou  art  my  Son  "  ?  ^  We  must  answer  this  question  by 
observing,  first,  a  general  principle  Charles  has  established  regarding 
all  Messianic  titles,  that  they  apply  reciprocally  to  Israel  and  its 
representative;  second,  by  noting  the  feature  distinctive  of  Jesus' 
own  teaching.  On  the  principle  of  Charles  we  perceive  at  once  in  what 

*  The  variation  of  the  tradition  (Luke  iii,  22,  Western  text,  has, "  this  day  have 
I  b^otten  thee,"  instead  of  "in  thee  I  am  well  pleased  "),  and  the  Pauline  cast 
of  the  Markan  phrase  (cf.  Mk.  i  with  Eph.  i)  which  underlies  Matthew  and  Luke 
(a  text)  justify  the  suspicion  that  only  the  words  "  Thou  art  my  Son  "  represent 
the  original. 


RELATIONS   OF   NEW  TESTAMENT  SCIENCE       583 

sense  the  Messiah  is  called  "the  Son. "  He  is  the  Elect  or  Chosen,  as 
representative  and  head  of  the  Elect  or  Chosen  people.  He  is  the. 
Beloved  because  they  are  "  the  Beloved  people."  He  is  called  6  "Aytos, 
"the  saint,"  because  they  are  ol  ayioi,  "the  people  of,  the  saints  of, 
the  Most  High."  Nay,  even  the  designation  which  is  most  relied  on  by 
sticklers  for  a  difference  in  kind  as  well  as  degree  between  Christ's 
sonship  and  ours,  the  Johannine /Aovoycvr^s,  the  "only-begotten,"  is 
paralleled  thus  in  II  Esdras :  "  Thou  hast  said  that  Israel  is  thy  first- 
bom,  thy  only-begotten."  In  short,  there  is  nothing  so  fundamental 
in  the  Messianic  hope  as  the  doctrine  resting  on  Ex.  iv,  22,  that  Jeho- 
vah chose  Israel  out  of  all  the  nations  to  be  an  adoption.  He  "  called 
his  son  out  of  Egypt."  This  conception  of  the  sonship  of  Messiah, 
the  Son  par  eminence,  is  far  more  fundamental  than  the  so-called 
theocratic,  and  it  is  that  which  really  corresponds  both  to  Jesus' 
personal  consciousness,  and  to  his  proclamation  of  his  mission.  It 
is  not  a  sense  of  royalty  that  is  expressed  in  the  utterance,  "All 
things  are  delivered  unto  me  of  my  Father,  and  no  man  knoweth  the 
Son  save  the  Father,  neither  the  Father  save  the  Son  and  he  to 
whomsoever  the  Son  willeth  to  reveal  him."  It  is  a  personal  sense  of 
adoption  giving  the  peace  of  filial  communion  to  one  who  in  the 
purity  of  his  own  heart  has  seen  God,  and  knows  he  can  bring  all  that 
will  receive  his  easy  yoke  into  the  same  blessed  communion;  one  who 
kno"ws  the  kingdom  at  hand,  because  in  its  essence  he  knows  it 
realized  within  him.  He  knows  himself  a  Son  because  he  has  entered 
the  kingdom.  He  knows  himself  the  Son  because  as  yet  others  await 
his  revelation  to  become  fellow  heirs. 

The  proof  that  Jesus'  consciousness  of  sonship  is  of  this  type  is  to 
be  found  in  the  proclamation  of  his  mission  in  his  most  undisputed 
utterances.  What  is  the  whole  aim  and  purport  of  the  Sermon  on  the 
Mount  but  to  show  what  kind  of  conduct  corresponds  with  the  daily 
manifested  disinterested  goodness  and  forgiving  kindness  of  God; 
and  that  men  must  imitate  this  in  order  to  "be  sons  of  the  Highest; 
for  he  is  kind  even  to  the  unthankful  and  the  evil."  Wliat  does  Jesus 
offer  to  those  who  with  him  forsake  home  and  kindred  that  they  may 
hear  the  will  of  God  and  do  it?  They  are  to  be  his  spiritual  kindred, 
children  of  the  one  Father,  his  "brother  and  sister  and  mother." 

It  is  true  that  Jesus  has  deep  sympathy  for  the  apocalyptic  escha- 
tological  preaching  of  the  Baptist,  that  he  reacts  at  last  in  strong 
antagonism  against  the  religion  of  scribes  and  Pharisees,  the  ortho- 
doxy of  his  day.  But  it  is  after  all  this  dominant  tj^pe,  nomism, 
legalism,  on  which  Jesus  mainly  builds,  and  from  which  he  takes  his 
departure.  The  ideal  of  the  genuine  Pharisee  and  his  are  essentially 
the  same.  Israel,  the  people  of  God,  is  to  be  his  son,  and  as  such 
his  heir,  lords  of  the  creation.  This  is  to  be  realized  in  God's  kingdom, 
his  sovereignty,  which  is  the  doing  of  his  will  on  earth  as  it  is  done 


584  NEW  TESTAMENT 

in  heaven.  Only,  for  scribe  and  Pharisee  the  will  is  all  revealed  in  the 
'  written  Torah,  the  Law,  ceremonial  and  moral.  Whoso  accepts  its 
yoke  is  a  son,  the  common  people  that  know  it  not  are  accursed.  For 
Jesus  the  will  is  revealed  in  the  impulse  of  kindness  in  the  heart  of  a 
compassionate  Samaritan,  in  the  daily  example  of  the  living,  loving 
Father  in  heaven.  He  offers  his  call  to  publicans  and  sinners  —  yes, 
when  faith  comes  to  meet  him  across  the  barrier  of  race  and  religion, 
he  offers  it  even  to  the  heathen  Syrophoenician.  Entrance  into  the 
brotherhood  has  at  last  but  one  condition,  "  Whosoever  will  do  the 
will  of  my  Father."  This  is  the  one  aim  for  himself  and  his  followers, 
"  Thy  will,  not  mine,  be  done  "  ;  but  the  will  is  not  the  mere  written 
Torah  as  given  to  them  of  old-time.  It  is  w^hat  the  God  w'hom  Jesus 
sees  and  knows  is  ever  doing  in  his  spirit  of  limitless  loving-kindness. 
Paul  has  paraphrased  it  as  no  other  could,  "  Be  ye  imitators  of  God 
as  beloved  sons  (the  Messianic  aim),  and  walk  in  love  (make  love  your 
halacha)  even  as  Christ  also  (the  Beloved  Son)  loved  you  and  gave 
himself  up  for  us  an  offering  of  a  sweet  savor  unto  God."  This  is 
the  "reasonable  worship"  (XoyiKr]  Xarptia)  by  which  we  are  "trans- 
formed from  this  world  by  the  renewing  of  our  minds,"  and  come  to 
"know  (as  sons  who  boast  of  'knowing  the  will')  the  good  and 
acceptable  and  perfect  will  of  God." 

The  consciousness  of  Jesus  is  personal  and  ultimate.  It  is  a  con- 
sciousness of  divine  sonship.  It  lays  hold  upon  the  Messianic  hope  of 
Israel  because  that  is  akin  to  it,  but  it  is  the  greater  absorbing  the 
less,  not  vice  versa.  The  kingdom  of  God  is  to  Jesus  the  doing  on 
earth  by  all  of  the  will  of  his  Father.  But  the  knowledge  which  he  has 
of  his  Father,  of  his  nature  and  of  his  will,  is  not  delivered  to  him  by 
the  scribes  or  wise  men  of  his  people;  it  is  given  to  him  of  his  Father, 
who  is  seen  of  the  pure  in  heart,  and  reveals  it  "unto  babes."  What 
verification  by  actual  observation  is  to  the  calculations  of  the  astro- 
nomer, that  the  insight  of  Jesus  is  to  the  religious  heritage  of  his 
people.  He  sees  God  in  nature,  in  history,  in  man,  and  therefore  knows. 
As  voicer  of  the  highest,  truest,  religious  instinct  of  humanity  we 
may  indeed  call  him  Son  of  Man.  But  call  him  rather  just  "  the  Son." 
Our  highest  knowledge  of  the  .Father  is  that  which  the  Son  hath 
willed  to  reveal.  This  is  the  distinctive  element  of  the  gospel,  the 
nucleus  from  which  our  New  Testament  science  must  ramify  in  all 
its  relations  with  kindred  sciences. 


THE  PRESENT  PROBLEMS  OF  NEW  TESTAMENT  STUDY 

BY    ERNEST   DE    WITT    BURTON 

[Ernest  De  Witt  Burton,  Professor  of  New  Testament  interpretation,  and  head  of 
New  Testament  Department,  University  of  Chicago,  b.  February  4,  1856, 
Granville,  Ohio.  A.B.  Denison  University,  1876;  D.D.  ibid.  1897  Studied,  Uni- 
versity of  Leipzig,  1887;  University  of  Berlin,  1894;  Instructor  in  New  Testa- 
ment Greek,  Rochester  Theological  Seminary,  1882-83;  Associate  Professor  and 
Professor  of  New  Testament  Interpretation,  Newton  Theological  Institution, 
1886-92;  Professor  of  New  Testament  Interpretation,  and  head  of  Department, 
University  of  Chicago,  1892 — .  Member  of  Society  of  Biblical  Literature  and 
Exegesis.  Author  of  Syntax  of  the  Moods  and  Tenses  in  New  Testament  Greek, 
1893;  Short  Introduction  to  the  Gospels,  1904,  etc.] 

The  topic  of  this  paper  was  not  chosen  by  me,  but  assigned  by 
the  Programme  Committee  of  the  Congress.  I  am  required  to  state 
the  problems  of  New  Testament  study  as  they  confront  scholars 
to-day.  I  am  asked  to  take  my  stand  on  the  frontier  of  New  Testa- 
ment study  and  formulate  the  questions  which  the  scholarship  of 
the  immediate  future  will  be  called  upon  to  investigate  and  answer. 
As  far  as  possible  personal  opinion  is  to  be  eliminated,  and  the  state- 
ment to  be  objective  and  representative  of  the  most  enlightened  New 
Testament  scholarship. 

The  progress  of  biblical  study  has  converted  the  New  Testament 
student  from  an  interpreter  of  a  body  of  sacred  and  authoritative 
literature  into  the  historian  of  a  movement  of  mighty  significance 
in  the  history  of  religion,  the  rise  of  Christianity.  So  long  as  Christian 
thought  was  controlled  by  the  conception  of  the  plenary  inspiration 
of  the  New  Testament  Scriptures  and  the  final  authority  of  each 
passage  of  them,  the  only  function  of  the  New  Testament  student 
was  that  of  the  literary  interpreter,  and  his  only  tasks  that  of  inter- 
pretation and  such  others  as  were  necessary  to  it.  To  the  inter- 
pretative task  the  history  of  the  canon  was  subsidiary  as  showing 
the  process  by  which  the  books  contained  in  the  canon  attained  — 
rightly,  of  course,  it  was  held  —  their  position  of  eminence  and  author- 
ity. Textual  criticism  furnished  the  letter  of  the  inspired  text. 
Grammar  and  lexicography  were  implements  of  its  interpretation. 
And  there  was  even  a  place  for  the  history  of  New  Testament  times, 
and  the  introduction  to  New  Testament  books,  since  these  contrib- 
uted to  the  interpretation  of  the  books  by  furnishing  their  historic 
setting. 

Such  was  once  the  point  of  view  from  which  the  work  of  the 
New  Testament  student  was  defined.  Such  is  still  the  point  of  view 
from  which  some  regard  it.  But  with  the  great  body  of  New  Testa- 
ment students  this  is  no  longer  true.  Clear  definition  of  the  nature 
of  the  interpretative  process  and  the  more  faithful  application  of  it 
to  the  New  Testament  have  made  it  impossible  to  maintain  that 


586  NEW  TESTAMENT 

there  are  no  inconsistencies  in  statement  of  fact  or  of  doctrine  in  the 
books  of  the  New  Testament,  and  have  compelled  the  interpreter, 
if  he  would  be  truly  an  interpreter,  to  become  historian,  pledged, 
not  to  the  discovery,  in  the  books  that  he  studies,  of  a  self-consistent 
body  of  Christian  doctrine  and  a  self-consistent  representation  of 
historic  facts,  but  rather  pledged  to  find  the  thought  of  the  several 
writers,  whatever  that  is,  and  to  set  it  forth  with  all  attainable  ac- 
curacy and  clearness. 

Here,  of  course,  the  New  Testament  student  might  have  made 
a  stand,  defined  his  task  rigidly  as  that  of  the  interpreter,  and  rested 
content  with  the  exposition  of  the  thought  of  each  book,  regardless 
of  the  consistency  of  this  with  the  statements  of  other  books  in  refer- 
ence to  historic  fact  or  doctrine.  But  to  have  pursued  this  course 
would  have  been  to  deny  the  motive  under  the  impulse  of  which 
he  had  undertaken  his  task.  For  the  study  of  the  New  Testament 
has  not  been,  as  a  rule,  carried  on  by  men  who  were  simply  pro- 
fessional interpreters,  satisfied  to  carry  to  its  perfection  a  scholastic 
process,  arbitrarily  defined.  They  have  been  men  who  were  seeking 
for  truth,  and  who,  discovering  differences  in  statement  of  fact  in 
their  sources,  could  not  be  content  with  the  mere  historic  fact  of  such 
difference,  but  were  impelled  by  the  very  motive  that  made  them 
students  of  the  New  Testament  to  inquire  what  the  historic  fact 
was  of  which  the  sources  contained  these  diverse  representations; 
and,  finding  in  the  New  Testament  books  different  conceptions  of 
religious  truth,  could  not  rest  content  with  the  statement  that  as 
interpreters  their  task  was  finished  when  they  had  found  the  thought 
that  underlies  each  of  the  variant  representations,  but  have  been 
compelled  to  press  on  to  ask  how  these  different  conceptions  are 
related  to  one  another,  if  not  also  ultimately  how  each  of  them  is 
related  to  reality. 

But  this  transformation  of  New  Testament  study  into  an  his- 
torical discipline  raises  some  new  and  difficult  questions  concerning 
the  scope  and  definition  of  the  discipline  —  questions  on  which  there 
is  not  as  yet  entire  agreement  among  New  Testament  scholars, 
and  which  it  belongs  to  this  paper  therefore  to  state. 

If  the  New  Testament  student  is  simply  an  historian,  can  he  any 
longer  claim  to  possess  a  distinct  field,  or  must  the  New  Testament 
department  be  merged  in  that  of  the  history  of  early  Christian  lit- 
erature, or  in  that  of  early  church  history?  To  the  proposal  that 
it  be  merged  in  the  history  of  early  Christian  literature  the  answer 
of  the  great  body  of  New  Testament  students  will,  I  am  confident, 
be  a  prompt  and  decided  negative.  The  books  of  the  New  Testa- 
ment are  in  the  broad  sense  of  the  term  literature,  and,  being  earlj' 
Christian  \\Titings,  may  properly  be  included  in  a  history  of  early 
Christian  literature.     But  it  is  not  as  literature  that  the  New  Testa- 


PROBLEMS  OF  NEW  TESTAMENT  STUDY         587 

ment  student  is  now  or  ever  will  be  chiefly  interested  in  them.  To 
him  they  are  incomparably  more  important  as  the  sources  for  history 
—  a  history  of  events  and  ideas.  In  this  history  literature  indeed 
has  a  place,  but  only  as  the  record  and  reflection  of  a  tremendously 
important  religious  movement,  namely,  the  rise  of  Christianity; 
and  the  rise  of  Christianity  was  not  a  literary  event,  and  can  never 
be  adequately  viewed  from  the  point  of  view  of  a  history  of  liter- 
ature. 

It  is  quite  another  question,  however,  whether  New  Testament 
study  is  to  be  merged  in  early  church  history.  The  rise  of  Christ- 
ianity certainly  belongs  to  the  history  of  Christianity,  and  it  is  a 
question  fairly  open  to  debate  w^hether  it  is  scientific  to  recognize 
a  New  Testament  department,  the  limits  of  which  are  defined  in 
advance  by  the  limits  of  the  canon  adopted  by  the  church,  and 
whether  this  field  of  study  should  not  rather  be  turned  over  to  the 
church  historian,  who  in  dealing  with  the  early  period  will,  as  in  every 
other  period,  use  whatever  sources  are  at  his  command.  Nor  when  it 
is  once  granted  that  the  New  Testament  student  is  properly  an  his- 
torian, dealing  with  the  history  of  literature,  events,  and  ideas,  can 
it  well  be  denied  that  they  are  right,  in  principle  at  least,  who  maintain 
that  the  New  Testament  department  must  be  transformed  into  the 
history  of  the  rise  of  Christianity?  The  student  of  the  life  of  Jesus 
or  of  the  life  of  Paul  can  never  be  debarred  from  using  any  trust- 
worthy source  for  these  chapters  of  history  because  the  church  of 
the  second  or  of  the  fourth  century  failed  to  include  it  in  the  sacred 
collection.  In  fact,  this  principle  is  already  practically  conceded. 
The  transformation  of  the  New  Testament  department  from  an 
interpretative  and  semi-systematic  discipline  into  a  distinctly  his- 
torical study  is  already  well  advanced,  and  lacks  little  but  a  change 
of  name  to  complete  it.  Granted  the  correctness  of  Oscar  Holtz- 
mann's  critical  judgment  respecting  the  historical  character  of  the 
Gospel  according  to  the  Hebrews  and  the  Gospel  according  to  John, 
who  would  deny  that  he  is  right  in  his  attitude  toward  these  books 
as  sources  of  the  life  of  Jesus?  Yet,  on  the  other  hand,  it  still  remains 
true  —  and,  so  far  as  there  is  now  any  basis  for  forecast,  is  likely  to 
remain  true  —  that  the  books  included  in  the  canon  furnish  the 
incomparably  most  important  of  all  the  direct  sources  for  the  history 
of  the  rise  of  Christianity.  So  predominant,  indeed,  are  the  books  of 
the  canon  among  these  sources  that  little  would  be  gained  from 
any  point  of  view  by  a  change  of  name.  The  principle  that  whatever 
other  literature  furnishes  contributory  information,  either  respect- 
ing the  general  historical  situation  or  more  directly  concerning  the 
origin  of  Christianity  itself,  is  and  must  be  used  by  the  New  Testa- 
ment student,  is  so  generally  conceded,  alike  by  those  who  would 
change  the  name  of  the  discipline  and  by  those  who  would  oppose 


588  NEW   TESTAMENT 

the  change,  that  the  question  is  increasingly  reduced  to  one  of  name 
only. 

We  cannot  be  far  wrong  in  affirming  that,  however  we  may  for 
convenience  divide  or  name  departments,  the  New  Testament  student 
of  to-day  recognizes  that  the  books  of  the  New  Testament  constitute 
his  chief  sources,  but  claims  for  himself  also  all  other  literature  that 
can  contribute  to  the  accomplishment  of  his  task  of  discovering  how 
Christianity  arose;  recognizes  that  the  interpretation  of  these  books 
is  his  central  work,  to  which  all  else  must  be  related  as  contributing 
to  it  or  as  built  upon  it;  yet  refuses  to  be  limited  to  the  business  of 
literary  interpretation,  and  claims  the  right  as  historian,  not  only 
to  discover  that  his  sources  affirm  this  and  that,  but  also  to  inquire 
whether  and  how  far  what  they  say  corresponds  to  historic  fact; 
and  so  defines  as  his  field  the  beginnings  of  Christianity  and  as  his 
problem  whatever  within  that  field  belongs  to  the  historian.  When, 
therefore,  we  speak  in  this  paper  of  the  books  of  the  New  Testament, 
it  should  be  understood  that  what  is  really  referred  to  is  all  those 
early  Christian  books  which  constitute  the  sources  for  the  history 
of  the  origin  of  Christianity,  and  that  in  so  designating  them  we  are 
simply  naming  the  whole  group  a  parte  potiori. 

But  this  very  definition  of  New  Testament  study  as  distinctly  his- 
torical raises  another  question  pertaining  to  the  scope  of  the  science. 
Does  historical  study  include  the  interpretation  of  events  and  the 
valuation  of  teachings  as  well  as  the  interpretation  of  literature,  the 
statement  of  teachings,  and  the  tracing  of  historic  connections? 

Into  this  question,  which  is  of  far-reaching  importance  for  the 
definition  of  the  nature  and  the  determination  of  the  function  of 
New  Testament  study,  alike  the  limits  of  space  and  regard  for  the 
rights  of  my  colleague.  Professor  Bacon,  forbid  me  to  enter  at 
length.  It  may  perhaps,  however,  be  permitted  me  to  offer  two 
suggestions.  First,  I  venture  to  think  that  historians  in  general, 
and  New  Testament  historians  in  particular,  will  not  long  consent 
to  exclude  from  their  own  field  that  which  Hamack  ^  well  calls 
"  the  business  and  highest  duty  of  the  historian,"  namely,  to  "  deter- 
mine what  is  of  permanent  value."  If  with  Percy  Gardner  ^  they  hold 
"  that  events  of  history,  when  interpreted,  may  be  the  basis  of  doc- 
trine," they  are  not  likely  to  concede  that  such  a  process  is  illegit- 
imate, or  that  the  New  Testament  student  is  debarred  from  under- 
taking it.  The  impulse  which  alone  is  adequate  to  promote  vigorous 
prosecution  of  New  Testament  study  will  not  permit  the  student 
to  content  himself  with  statements  of  objective  historic  fact,  consent- 
ing to  be  debarred  from  asking  questions  of  value  and  permanent 
validity.  The  strength  of  the  impulse  to  exceed  these  bounds  is 
shown  in  such  books  as  Wernle's  Beginnings  of  Christianity  and 

*  What  is  Christianity,  p.  13.  '  Hibbert  Journal,  April,  1903,  p.  569. 


PROBLEMS   OF   NEW  TESTAMENT  STUDY         589 

Harnack's  What  is  Christianity  9  —  in  both  of  which  the  historian 
is  evidently  chiefly  interested  in  the  question :  What  is  of  permanent 
validity?  What  is,  not  simply  historically  true,  but  normative  for 
human  life?  If  it  be  maintained  that  these  are  not  questions  for 
the  historian,  then  it  will  be  necessary  to  answer  that  the  New  Testa- 
ment historian  must  always  be  something  more  than  an  historian. 

My  second  suggestion  is  that,  if  the  New  Testament  historian 
may  legitimately  claim  the  right  to  enter  this  field,  it  is  equally  evi- 
dent that  he  cannot  as  New  Testament  historian  claim  exclusive 
right  to  it.  Events  can  be  interpreted  only  when  seen  in  relation. 
For  the  crudity  that  can  discover  profound  meanings  in  events  apart 
from  their  place  in  history  the  historian  can  have  no  tolerance.  And 
the  broader  the  view  which  one  is  able  to  take,  the  wider  the  horizon 
in  which  he  can  set  the  events  of  New  Testament  history,  the  truer 
are  his  interpretations  likely  to  be.  To  extend  that  horizon  to  include 
all  the  history  of  early  Christianity  is  well,  not  to  say  indispensable 
to  any  just  interpretation  of  events.  To  take  in  all  biblical  history 
is  better  —  shall  we  not  here  also  say  indispensable?  To  sweep  in 
the  whole  history  of  Christianity,  this  is  undoubtedly  better  still. 
To  include  the  knowledge  of  religion  at  large,  and,  not  least,  a  know- 
ledge of  religious  experience  as  it  can  be  studied  in  living  men,  this 
is  best  of  all.  The  New  Testament  student  who  best  apprehends 
the  nature  of  his  task  will  most  gladly  welcome  every  coadjutor 
who  brings  to  the  study  a  large  historical  knowledge  and  a  large 
horizon  in  which  to  set  the  knowledge  which  the  New  Testament 
student  himself  possesses  in  his  own  special  field. 

With  such  a  definition  and  conception  of  the  field  of  New  Testa- 
ment study,  we  may  divide  it  into  four  great  divisions. 

I.  Preparatory  studies:  those  which  are  prerequisite  to  literary 
interpetation,  including  — 

(1)  Textual  criticism. 

(2)  The  language  of  the  New  Testament. 

(3)  The  history  of  New  Testament  times,  both  in  the  Jewish  and 
the  Grseco-Roman  world. 

(4)  Introduction  to  the  New  Testament  books. 

II.  Literary  Interpretation  of  the  New  Testament  books:  the  dis- 
covery in  respect  to  each  New  Testament  book  of  the  course  of 
thought  of  which  it  was  the  expression. 

III.  New  Testament  History,  including  both  the  history  of  events 
and  the  history  of  thought  and,  as  a  necessary  element  of  the  process, 
criticism  of  the  results  of  interpretation  as  respects  matters  of  historic 
fact*. 

IV.  Indirectly  contributory  sciences:  such  as  the  history  of  the 
canon,  the  history  of  the  text,  the  history  of  interpretation,  and  the 
history  of  criticism. 


590  NEW  TESTAMENT 

I.  Preparatory  Studies 

(1)  Textual  criticism.  By  the  common  confession  of  scholars,  the 
present  period  of  textual  criticism  of  the  New  Testament  dates  from 
the  pubHcation  of  Westcott  and  Hort's  text  and  introduction  in  1881. 
AvaiUng  themselves  of  the  immensely  valuable  work  of  such  scholars 
as  Griesbach,  Lachmann,  Tischendorf,  Tregelles,  and  Scrivener, 
the  Cambridge  scholars  so  organized  and  interpreted  the  accessible 
facts  that  all  who  have  succeeded  them  are  compelled  to  state  their 
views  very  largely  in  the  form  of  agreement  with  or  dissent  from  their 
opinions.  Nor  are  there  to-day  visible  upon  the  horizon  any  signs 
to  justify  the  expectation  either  of  another  work  so  epoch-making  as 
theirs,  or  of  an  achievement  comparable  for  significance  with  that 
foundation-laying  task  which  was  accomplished  by  those  great  prede- 
cessors of  Westcott  and  Hort  already  named.  What  remains  to  be 
done  belongs  rather  to  the  completion  of  a  structure  which  in  its  main 
line  is  already  built,  than  either  to  those  pioneer  tasks  which  prepare 
the  way  for  great  constructive  work  or  to  such  constructive  work 
itself.  Yet  the  tasks  that  remain  are  in  themselves  both  large  and 
important,  and  there  is  every  reason  to  be  glad  that  there  is  so  large 
a  body  of  earnest  workers  whose  tastes  incline  them  and  whose  ability 
fits  them  to  undertake  and  accomplish  these  labors. 

The  work  of  Westcott  and  Hort  was  significant  in  three  directions : 
(a)  in  the  formulation  of  the  methods  of  textual  criticism;  (6)  in  the 
outlining  of  the  history  of  the  New  Testament  text,  especially  in 
the  first  four  centuries  of  its  existence;  (c)  in  the  actual  construction 
of  the  text.  In  all  three  of  these  particulars  their  work  marked  an 
advance  on  that  of  their  predecessors.  In  respect  to  the  first  and 
second  of  them,  few  scholars  will  deny  that  in  the  main  the  views  of 
Westcott  and  Hort  have  been  sustained  by  the  verdict  of  scholarly 
criticism  and  by  subsequent  discovery.  Yet  it  would  have  been 
surpassingly  strange  if  their  work  had  been  in  all  these  things  so 
decisive  as  to  leave  no  room  for  doubt  or  further  investigation.  So 
strange  a  thing  has,  at  any  rate,  not  happened.  In  two  important 
respects  Westcott  and  Hort  were  compelled  to  work  with  but  an 
imperfect  presentation  of  the  data :  in  the  matter  of  quotations  from 
the  New  Testament  in  the  Fathers,  and  in  that  of  the  text  and  history 
of  the  early  versions.  The  tasks  with  which  scholars  since  their  day 
have  been  engaged,  and  with  which  those  of  the  next  following  decades 
at  least  are  likely  to  be  engaged,  are  chiefly  in  the  more  thorough 
working  of  these  two  fields,  and  in  the  criticism  of  the  Westcott  and 
Hort  theory  of  the  history  of  the  text  on  the  basis  of  such  reworking. 

Definite  and  full  results  in  reference  to  the  quotations  must  await 
for  their  achievement  the  completion  of  those  editions  of  the  Fathers 
now  in  preparation,  and  in  which  such  splendid  progress  has  already 


PROBLEMS   OF   NEW  TESTAMENT  STUDY         591 

been  made  —  the  Berlin  and  Vienna  editions  of  the  Greek  and  Latin 
Fathers,  and  the  Paris  editions  of  the  Oriental  Christian  literature. 
As  these  tasks  progress,  it  will  become  increasingly  possible  to  replace 
those  great  collections  of  quotations  which  Burgon  made  with  others 
that  will  be  of  far  greater  value  because  they  will  be  of  wider  scope, 
and  based,  as  respects  the  Greek  and  Latin  Fathers  at  least,  on  a 
critically  edited  text. 

In  the  matter  of  the  versions,  Wordsworth  and  White  are  steadily 
carrying  forward  their  tasks  of  editing  the  Latin  texts  of  the  New 
Testament,  and  so  laying  a  foundation  for  more  exact  knowledge  of 
the  history  and  character  of  the  Latin  versions.  Horner  is  prosecuting 
his  work  of  editing  the  Bohairic  version  of  Egypt.  The  practical 
recovery  of  Tatian's  Diatessaron,  and  the  discovery  by  Mrs.  Lewis 
and  Mrs.  Gibson  of  the  Sinaitic  manuscript  of  the  Syriac  gospels, 
supplemented  by  the  scholarly  labors  of  Gwilliam,  Harris,  Burkitt, 
Hjelt,  and  others,  not  only  in  spite  of,  but  in  part  because  of,  their 
differences  of  opinion  on  many  points,  are  laying  a  foundation  for 
a  far  more  accurate  knowledge  of  the  history  and  text  of  the  Syriac 
versions  than  has  hitherto  been  possessed.  In  respect  to  the  Sahidic, 
Armenian,  and  other  ancient  versions  scarcely  more  than  a  beginning 
has  been  made. 

The  monumental  work  of  Tischendorf  and  Gregory  in  collecting 
and  classifying  the  ascertained  facts  in  all  parts  of  the  field  is  now  to 
be  supplemented  by  that  of  Von  Soden  and  his  associates  in  the 
preparation  of  a  new  critical  edition  upon  a  magnificent  scale. 

Final  criticism  of  the  views  of  Westcott  and  Hort  in  respect  to  the 
history  of  the  text  must,  as  intimated,  await  the  completion  of  some 
of  these  investigations.  Yet  in  the  mean  time  scholars  are  not  idle 
in  this  direction.  Few  are  left  to-day  either  to  dispute  the  correct- 
ness of  the  genealogical  theory  which  Westcott  and  Hort  did  so  much 
to  state  with  clearness,  or  to  deny  that  their  contention  respecting 
the  Syrian  text  was  substantially  correct,  save  perhaps  in  imputing 
to  its  producers  too  much  of  a  deliberate  intention  to  create  a  new 
text.  Respecting  the  pre-Syrian  texts  the  case  is  somewhat  different. 
The  validity  of  the  distinction  between  the  Neutral  and  Alexandrian 
texts  has  been  disputed  by  more  than  one  scholar  of  repute,  and  the 
precise  nature  of  the  relation  between  these  two  types  of  text  still 
remains  to  be  determined  with  certainty.  The  progress  of  knowledge 
in  respect  to  versions  and  quotations  will,  it  is  to  be  expected,  lead 
after  no  long  time  to  a  more  definite  solution  of  this  problem  than  has 
hitherto  been  possible. 

But  it  is  in  respect  to  the  Western  text  that  there  is  to-day  perhaps 
the  sharpest  difference  of  opinion  and  the  greatest  probability  of  a 
revision  of  the  Westcott  and  Hort  view.  That  the  Western  text  is  not 
properly  called  Western  Hort  himself  recognized;  it  is  now  questioned 


592  NEW  TESTAMENT 

whether  it  is  properly  a  text,  and  does  not  rather  (to  use  the  words  of 
Burkitt)  "represent  the  unrevised  and  progressively  deteriorated 
state  of  the  text  throughout  the  Christian  world  in  the  ante-Nicene 
age."  To  the  solution  of  the  origin,  nature,  and  value  of  the  so-called 
Western  text,  perhaps  the  most  important  question  now  at  issue  in 
this  field,  all  those  are  contributing  who  are  working  either  in  the 
versions  or  the  quotations  or  in  the  study  of  the  facts  brought  out  by 
the  laborers  in  these  fields. 

It  would  be  rash  to  predict  what  will  be  the  outcome  of  all  the 
investigations  now  in  progress  or  waiting  to  be  undertaken.  But  at 
present  it  seems  probable  that  the  result  will  not  be  so  much  any  con- 
siderable revision  of  the  text  as  a  different  interpretation  of  the  facts 
respecting  the  history  of  the  text,  in  which  is  involved  also  the  possible 
discarding  of  the  name  "Western,"  a  new  grouping  of  so-called 
Western  documents,  and  a  new  valuation  of  the  testimony  of  certain 
combinations  of  witnesses. 

Closely  connected  with  the  peculiar  variations  of  the  Western  type 
of  text  in  the  gospels,  especially  in  the  Gospel  of  Luke  and  in  the  Acts, 
is  a  problem  which  arises  from  the  nature  of  the  process  by  which 
the  synoptic  gospels  were  produced.  As  the  facts  in  respect  to  the 
text  of  Acts  and  Luke  suggest  the  possibility  of  two  editions  of  the 
same  work,  each  having  a  claim  to  be  accepted  as  genuine,  so  the 
evidence  that  the  synoptic  gospels  were  not  produced  each  of  them 
independently,  and  by  a  single  act  of  individual  authorship,  but  in 
part  at  least  by  compilation  and  a  process  of  editorship,  the  precise 
length  and  limits  of  which  it  is  difficult  to  define,  raises  the  question, 
What  is  to  be  considered  the  original  text?  In  both  cases  the  pro- 
blem of  textual  criticism  becomes  tangent  with,  if  it  does  not  even 
merge  into,  that  of  historical  or  literary  criticism,  and  the  need  arises 
for  the  clear  definition  of  the  textual  critic's  task,  and  of  its  relation  to 
documentary  criticism.  Whether  the  unfavorable  verdict  which  at 
present  scholars  seem  inclined  to  pass  upon  Blass's  theory  of  the 
double  text  of  Acts  and  Luke  will  be  confirmed  or  not,  it  can  scarcely 
be  doubted  that  the  whole  problem  of  the  text  of  the  synoptic  gospels 
and  Acts  calls  for  investigation  by  one  who  is  equally  at  home  in  the 
facts  and  principles  of  textual  criticism  and  in  the  synoptic  problem. 

(2)  The  language  of  the  New  Testament.  The  lexicons  of  Grimm- 
Thayer,  Cremer,  and  others,  and  the  grammars,  such  as  those  of 
Buttmann,  Blass,  and  Winer-Schmiedel,  are  monuments  of  diligent 
and  successful  work  already  achieved  in  reference  to  the  New  Testa- 
ment language.  Yet  the  authors  of  these  books  would  probably  be 
foremost  in  declaring  that  this  portion  of  our  field  abounds  in  unsolved 
problems  and  unaccomplished  tasks.  The  studies  of  Dalman  in 
relation  to  the  Greek  used  by  New  Testament  writers,  the  publication 
of  papyri,  in  Germany  especially  by  the  scholars  of  Berlin,  and  in 


PROBLEMS   OF   NEW  TESTAMENT  STUDY         593 

England  by  Petrie,  Grenfell,  and  Hunt,  and  others,  and  the  discus- 
sions of  Deissman  and  Moulton,  have  opened  up  a  wide  and  most 
interesting  field,  at  the  same  time  that  Cremer's  prosecution  of  his 
great  task  and  the  publication  of  many  notable  monographs  have 
pointed  the  way  to  a  more  scientific  method  of  using  all  available 
materials.  Our  problems  are  of  four  classes:  (a)  those  that  pertain 
to  the  general  history  of  later  Greek,  and  the  place  in  that  history 
of  the  Greek  used  by  various  New  Testament  writers,  including  in 
particular  the  question  whether  we  are  to  cease  to  speak  of  New- 
Testament  Greek,  and  cease  to  write  New  Testament  grammars  and 
lexicons,  merging  these  simply  in  the  works  on  later  Greek;  and  spe- 
cifically (b)  those  that  deal  with  the  forms  of  words;  (c)  those  that 
pertain  to  syntax;  (d)  those  that  pertain  to  the  meaning  of  words, 
lexicography. 

These  problems  may  be  studied  from  two  points  of  view:  first, 
from  that  of  the  nature  of  the  Semitic  influence  upon  New  Testament 
and  contemporary  Greek  writers;  and,  second,  from  that  of  the 
relation  of  the  language  of  the  New  Testament  writers  to  contempo- 
rary Greek,  as  exhibited  not  only  in  the  literature  of  that  period,  but 
in  inscriptions  and  papyri. 

From  the  first  of  these  two  points  of  view,  it  is  necessary  to  dis- 
tinguish more  accurately,  if  possible,  than  hitherto  between  the  influ- 
ences which  the  New  Testament  writers  brought  with  them  to  their 
task  —  those  Semitic  elements  which  had  already  become  a  part  of 
their  natural  speech  —  and,  on  the  other  hand,  those  which  came 
through  the  medium  of  the  sources  used  by  them.  Among  the  influ- 
ences affecting  the  current  speech,  we  may  distinguish  those  which 
came  directly  from  the  living  Aramaic  speech  and  those  which  came 
through  the  use  of  the  Bible,  chiefly  from  the  Septuagint.  For 
however  true  it  is  that  attention  has  hitherto  been  directed  too  exclu- 
sively to  the  Septuagint  as  an  influence  affecting  the  language  of  the 
New  Testament,  it  is  not  less  true  that  the  reaction  of  the  Septuagint 
upon  the  Greek  written  by  Jews  is  an  element  of  the  problem  that 
cannot  be  wholly  ignored.  Among  the  influences  of  the  second  class 
we  may  distinguish  those  which  proceed  from  the  fact  that  Jesus 
spoke  in  Aramaic  and  those  which  are  due  to  possible  Semitic  sources 
of  New  Testament  books. 

On  the  side  of  contemporary  Greek  usage  very  valuable  results 
may  yet  be  expected  both  in  the  study  of  syntax  and  in  that  of  lexi- 
cography. It  would  be  easy  to  name  many  scientific  problems,  in 
each  of  these  departments,  that  await  the  solution  of  a  competent 
investigator;  in  some  of  these  —  as,  for  example,  to  mention  but  a 
single  instance,  the  study  of  the  use  of  the  article  in  later  Greek  —  the 
student  will  have  to  undertake  tasks  which  might,  naturally  falling 
to  the  share  of  the  classical  scholar,  have  been  substantially  accom- 


594  NEW   TESTAMENT 

plished  by  him;  but  in  others  —  for  example,  in  reference  to  the 
syntax  of  the  verb  —  he  can  wisely  build  upon  the  foundation  already 
laid  by  the  classical  scholar. 

To  state  in  a  word  the  inclusive  problem  pertaining  to  the  language 
of  the  New  Testament,  what  is  required  is  the  more  complete  applica- 
tion of  the  historical  method,  and  this  both  in  the  sense  that  the  basis 
of  historical  induction  shall  be  broadened  and  that  the  historical  point 
of  view  shall  be  more  rigidly  maintained.  He  who  would  write  the 
grammar  which  New  Testament  students  need,  must  do  it  upon  the 
basis  of  a  more  thorough  knowledge  of  the  results  of  comparative 
philology  than  has  usually  been  possessed  hitherto,  and  must  also 
add  a  wide  knowledge  both  of  Semitic  philology  and  of  the  usage 
of  later  Greek  writers,  as  well  as  an  equipment  of  psychological  insight 
which  will  enable  him  as  a  true  interpreter  to  discern  for  what  forms 
of  thought  those  whose  language  he  is  studying  employed  this  or  that 
form  of  word.  In  the  realm  of  lexicography  it  is  required,  not  alone 
that  there  shall  be  produced  from  contemporary  and  approximately 
contemporary  literature  vouchers  for  the  meanings  which  are  ascribed 
to  a  word,  but  that  the  whole  historical  development  of  the  usage  of 
the  word  and  of  the  idea  for  which  it  stood,  shall  be  traced,  and  the 
word  as  it  is  used  in  New  Testament  times  be  seen  from  the  angle  of 
vision  from  which  the  New  Testament  writer,  as  the  heir  of  this 
historical  development,  viewed  it.  The  last  quarter  of  a  century  has 
seen  steady  advance  both  in  the  widening  of  the  field  of  induction  to 
include  not  simply  classical  writers,  the  Septuagint,  and  the  New 
Testament,  but  all  accessible  Jewish  literature,  and  now  also  the 
inscriptions  and  newly  discovered  papyri,  and  in  the  more  thorough 
recognition  of  the  genetic  nature  of  the  process  by  which  meanings 
develop,  and  the  consequent  necessity  of  employing  a  genetic  method 
in  investigation.  But  much  remains  to  be  done,  and  the  field  is  open 
and  inviting. 

(3)  The  history  of  New  Testament  times.  In  the  history  of  New 
Testament  times,  so  far  as  it  pertains  to  the  record  of  external  events, 
whether  in  the  Jewish  or  Grseco-Roman  world,  there  is  little  reason 
to  expect  great  progress  in  the  immediate  future.  On  the  Jewish 
side,  Schiirer,  Hausrath,  Oscar  Holtzmann,  and  others  have  so 
thoroughly  employed  the  now  available  material  as  to  leave  little  for 
others  to  do;  and  the  historians  of  the  Roman  Empire  may  be  trusted 
to  furnish  to  New  Testament  students  all  the  accessible  information 
in  this  field.  But  in  the  history  of  thought,  the  situation  is  quite 
different.  It  would  be  too  much  to  say  that  we  are  here  only  upon  the 
threshold  of  our  task;  the  work  of  the  writers  already  named,  and 
of  Charles,  Conybeare,  Weber,  Bousset,  and  others  scarcely  less  emi- 
nent, has  carried  us  well  beyond  the  entrance  to  the  territory.  But 
that  much  remains  to  be  done  in  the  dating,  analyzing,  and  interpret- 


PROBLEMS   OF   NEW  TESTAMENT  STUDY         595 

ing  the  Jewish  literature,  both  Palestinian  and  non-Palestinian,  and 
yet  more  in  the  still  more  difficult  task  of  coordinating  into  one  his- 
torical view  results  derived  from  the  study  of  many  documents,  in- 
cluding Psalms,  Apocalypse,  Targums,  Midrash,  and  Mishna,  none 
who  have  even  an  elementary  knowledge  of  the  subject  will  deny. 
Whether  there  are  tasks  that  still  await  accomplishment  in  the  field  of 
Graeco-Roman  literature  and  thought,  it  does  not  belong  to  this  essay 
to  say.  But  the  New  Testament  student  is  well  aware  that  the  suc- 
cessful accomplishment  of  his  task  requires  a  broad  and  accurate 
knowledge  of  the  history  of  the  Roman  Empire  in  the  early  Christ- 
ian centuries,  and  that  there  is  still  much  to  be  accomplished  in  the 
investigation  of  the  question  of  the  extent  to  which,  and  the  points 
at  which,  the  thought  of  the  New  Testament  writers  has  been  af- 
fected by  Greek  ideas  concerning  God  and  man  and  the  world  and 
their  relations  one  to  another.  But  here  perhaps  we  are  trenching 
upon  another  division  of  our  field  —  the  interpretation  of  New 
Testament  books  and  the  history  of  New  Testament  thought. 

(4)  Special  introduction,  to  speak  from  the  point  of  view  which  we 
have  assumed  and  defended,  deals  with  questions  pertaining  to  the 
origin  of  those  books  which  constitute  the  sources  for  the  history  of 
the  rise  of  Christianity.  Such  a  definition  of  the  field  raises  a  ques- 
tion concerning  the  particular  books  to  be  included  in  it,  which  was 
formerly  regarded  as  answered  by  the  limits  of  the  canon.  In  gen- 
eral, what  we  seek  is  the  creative  period  and  literature  of  Christianity, 
the  period  of  those  who  not  simply  received  Christianity,  but  exerted 
a  formative  influence  upon  it,  determining  in  some  measure  the  char- 
acter of  the  new  religion.  Among  these  Jesus  stands  preeminent 
and  unique,  and  because  he  did  not  write  books,  but  the  record  of  his 
life  and  teachings  comes  to  us  in  the  writings  of  others,  we  must 
include  in  the  scope  of  our  study  any  and  every  book  which  makes 
a  real  contribution  to  our  knowledge  of  his  life  and  teachings.  But 
while  Christianity  rightly  takes  its  name  from  Jesus,  it  would  be  idle 
to  deny  to  Paul  a  place  among  the  makers  of  Christianity  in  a  second- 
ary but  true  sense,  forward  though  he  himself  would  be  to  refuse  to 
stand  in  any  sense  upon  the  plane  with  Jesus.  But  Paulinism  was 
not  the  only  formative  force,  after  Jesus,  that  was  active  in  the 
formative  period  of  Christianity,  and  to  the  sources  for  the  life  and 
teachings  of  Jesus,  and  those  that  give  us  like  information  concern- 
ing Paul,  we  have  to  add  such  other  books  as  the  Apocalypse,  the 
epistle  to  the  Hebrews,  and  some  at  least  of  the  catholic  epistles 
which  illuminate  for  lis  the  early  days  of  our  religion.  The  boundary 
to  be  drawn  is  not  a  strictly  chronological  one,  as  if  the  creative 
literature  of  the  character  of  which  we  are  speaking  necessarily 
ceased  to  be  produced  as  soon  as  that  of  a  more  secondary  character 
was  produced.    But  we  shall  probably  not  be  far  from  right  if  we 


596  NEW  TESTAMENT 

define  the  period  of  which  we  are  to  construct  the  history  as  extend- 
ing approximately  to  the  end  of  the  first  century,  and  the  literature 
to  be  examined  as  all  that  which  makes  a  real  contribution  to  our 
knowledge  of  the  Christianity  of  the  first  century. 

But  the  modern  definition  of  the  function  of  New  .Testament 
scholarship  compels  also  a  revised  definition  of  the  question  which  is 
to  be  answered  concerning  these  books.  Formerly  the  question  of 
genuineness  occupied  the  centre  of  the  stage  and  was  thought  of 
as  almost  synonymous  with  the  question  of  the  right  of  the  book  to 
a  place  in  the  New  Testament.  To-day  the  question  that  introduction 
asks  is  not,  Has  the  book  a  right  to  a  place  in  the  New  Testament? 
but,  on  the  one  side,  What  information  can  we  gain  concerning  the 
origin  of  this  book,  its  authorship,  occasion,  and  purpose,  in  the  light 
of  which  its  real  meaning  may  be  discovered?  and,  on  the  other,  To 
what  period  and  stage  of  the  history  of  Christianity  does  the  book 
itself  belong,  and  what  is  the  value  of  its  assertions  in  the  realm  of 
historic  fact?  Introduction  is  thus  purely  an  historical  discipline,  both 
in  itself  and  in  the  end  that  it  serves.  The  questions  that  it  asks  are 
questions  of  historic  fact;  the  problems  to  the  solution  of  which  its 
answers  contribute  are  wholly  historical.  The  question  of  genuine- 
ness becomes  simply  the  question  of  authorship  and  date,  important 
because  on  its  decision  depends  in  some  measure  the  interpretation 
of  the  book,  but  more  especially  either  because  by  the  answer  to  it 
we  are  able  to  place  the  book  and  its  contribution  in  its  proper  his- 
toric position,  or  because  the  decision  helps  us  to  give  the  right  value 
to  its  statements  of  fact. 

The  field  is  so  broad  that  clearness  of  exposition  requires  its  sub- 
division into  parts.   We  may  speak  separately  of  — 

(a)  The  letters  ascribed  to  Paul. 

(6)  The  synoptic  gospels  and  the  Acts. 

(c)  The  Fourth  Gospel  and  the  Johannine  letters. 

(d)  The  Apocalypse. 

(e)  Hebrews  and  the  epistles  of  James,  Peter,  and  Jude. 

The  letters  ascribed  to  Paul.  In  respect  to  the  Pauline  letters 
there  meets  us  at  the  very  outset  the  question  whether  it  is  incumbent 
upon  us  to  vindicate  our  right  to  use  the  term  "Pauline  letters"  at 
all,  as  against  those  who  would  permit  us  to  speak  only  of  pseudo- 
Pauline  epistles  dating  from  the  second  century.  The  era  of  New 
Testament  criticism  that  began  with  Ferdinand  Christian  Baur  has 
been  distinguished,  not  simply  by  the  recognition  of  certain  letters  of 
Paul  as  genuine,  but  even  more  fundamentally  by  the  perception 
of  the  fact  that  the  student  of  the  New  Testament  is  a  student,  not 
simply  of  literature,  but  of  history,  and  by  the  attempt  on  the  basis 
of  literature,  properly  dated  and  placed,  to  write  the  history  of  the 
origin  of  Christianity.    Is  that  era  past?    Have  we  now  to  become, 


PROBLEMS   OF  NEW  TESTAMENT  STUDY         597 

as  previous  to  the  nineteenth  century  bibHcal  scholars  as  a  rule  were, 
students  of  literature  rather  than  historians,  and  are  we  to  confess 
that  of  the  origins  of  Christianity  we  have,  at  least  in  the  Pauline 
letters,  no  authentic  monuments?  Are  we  no  longer  in  the  age  of 
Baur,  but  in  that  of  Loman  and  Van  Manen?  The  question,  if  it 
requires  consideration  at  all  as  one  of  the  living  problems  of  New 
Testament  study,  is  one  of  very  serious  import.  For  if  it  is  true  that 
the  rightfulness  or  wrongfulness  of  Van  Manen 's  position  is  for 
scholarship  an  open  question,  then  it  must  be  answered  before  we 
can  even  ask  any  others  in  respect  to  the  Pauline  literature,  not  to 
say  the  apostolic  age.  It  is  now  more  than  twenty  years  since  these 
views  were  first  presented  to  scholars  in  articles  published  in  the 
Theologisch  Tijdschrift,  and  sixteen  years  since  they  were  presented 
at  length  and  in  easily  accessible  form  in  Steck's  Galaterbrief.  Elab- 
orate refutation,  it  must  be  admitted,  they  have  not  received.  As 
certainly  have  they  not  gained  any  general  or  enthusiastic  approval. 
Nothing  comparable  to  that  which  ensued  upon  the  publication  of 
Baur's  Paulus  has  happened  in  the  scholarly  world  in  respect  to  the 
writings  of  Loman,  Volter,  Steck,  and  Van  Manen.  Is  it  because 
New  Testament  scholarship  is  staggered,  silenced,  consciously  put 
to  rout?  Even  Van  Manen,  who  complains  of  the  neglect  with  which 
these  views  have  been  received,  does  not  venture  to  affirm  that 
this  is  the  explanation  of  it.  No;  it  must  be  admitted  that  the  com- 
parative silence  of  scholars  means,  not  that  there  is  nothing  that 
could  be  said  in  reply,  but  that  in  their  judgment  little  need  be  said. 
Van  Manen 's  plea  for  attention  may  perhaps  call  forth  —  ought 
perhaps  to  call  forth  —  a  presentation  of  the  reasons  why  New  Testa- 
ment scholars  believe  that  Paul  wrote  some  at  least  of  the  letters 
which  have  come  down  to  us  bearing  his  name,  at  once  more  sub- 
stantial than  has  hitherto  been  put  forth  and  more  worthy  of  the 
importance  of  the  subject.  But  unless  New  Testament  scholarship 
shall  experience  a  very  decided  change  of  mind,  it  will  not  take  this 
up  as  a  vital  question,  the  answer  to  which  is  in  such  sense  in  doubt 
that,  pending  the  solution  of  it,  all  other  work  upon  the  life  and 
teaching  of  Paul  must  be  held  in  suspense ;  but  rather  as  a  buttressing 
of  foundations  whose  strength  has  already  been  fully  established. 

If,  then,  we  are  right  in  believing  that  in  the  field  of  the  criticism 
of  the  Pauline  letters  we  are  still  in  the  epoch  that  dates  from  1831, 
not  from  1882,  then  we  possess  in  Galatians,  Corinthians,  and  Romans 
a  basis  of  knowledge  respecting  the  life  of  the  apostle  Paul,  and  a 
firm  basis  of  judgment  respecting  his  type  of  mind,  his  literary  style, 
and  his  theological  position.  There  remain,  no  doubt,  important 
problems  affecting  these  letters  :  respecting  Galatians,  the  location 
of  the  churches  addressed  and  a  considerable  group  of  minor  pro- 
blems associated  with  this  one;   respecting  Second  Corinthians,  the 


598  NEW  TESTAMENT 

question  whether  this  is  really  one  letter  or  a  collection  of  parts  of 
several  letters  moulded  into  the  form  of  a  single  letter,  not  by  the 
writer  himself,  but  by  a  considerably  later  editor  or  scribe;  respect- 
ing Romans,  the  question  of  its  integrity,  especially  as  pertains  to 
the  fifteenth  and  sixteenth  chapters.  But  however  these  problems 
may  eventually  be  solved,  we  are  still  in  possession  of  that  most 
important  advantage  in  any  field  of  study  —  a  foundation  on  which 
to  build,  a  base-line  from  which  to  triangulate  the  region  of  greater 
or  less  uncertainty. 

But  in  so  stating  the  matter  we  understate  the  positive  element 
of  the  situation.  For  as  is  well  known,  it  has  gradually  come  to 
be  recognized  that  the  kind  of  evidence  which  establishes  the  genuine- 
ness of  Galatians,  First  and  Second  Corinthians,  and  Romans  exists 
also  in  the  case  of  First  Thessalonians,  Philippians,  and  Philemon. 
The  present  attitude  of  scholarship  is  represented,  not  by  the  phrase 
"the  four  undisputed  letters  of  Paul,"  but  rather  by  the  expres- 
sion "the  generally  accepted  letters  of  Paul."  That  there  is  entire 
unanimity  on  this  point,  even  among  those  who  reject  Van  Manen's 
position,  is  not  here  affirmed.  There  are  problems  still  to  be  solved 
respecting  First  Thessalonians,  Philippians,  and  Philemon,  even  as 
there  are  in  respect  to  Galatians,  Corinthians,  and  Romans.  But 
the  question  of  their  genuineness  can  no  longer  be  counted  among 
the  acute  problems  of  New  Testament  study. 

Respecting  Second  Thessalonians,  Colossians,  and  Ephesians, 
the  situation  is  somewhat  different.  The  trend  of  opinion  is  very 
strongly  toward  the  acceptance  of  Colossians,  in  the  main  at  least, 
as  a  real  letter  of  the  apostle  himself,  any  differences  of  point  of 
view  between  it  and  the  other  letters  reflecting  the  progress  of  the 
apostle's  own  thinking  under  the  influence  of  contact  with  different 
types  of  thought  in  the  Grseco-Roman  world,  rather  than  the  thought 
of  a  period  subsequent  to  that  of  the  life  of  Paul.  That  Ephesians 
is  not  in  the  strictest  sense  a  letter,  but  a  sermon  or  theological  essay, 
cast  somewhat  in  the  form  of  a  literary  epistle,  and  that  only  as  such 
can  it  be  regarded  as  a  genuine  letter  of  Paul,  is  now  generally  ad- 
mitted. The  apostle  cannot  have  written  such  a  letter  specifically 
to  the  Ephesian  church.  The  impersonality  of  its  tone  can  be 
accounted  for  only  by  recognizing  its  semi-literary  character.  The 
view  that  the  author  intended  it  to  pass  as  a  letter  of  the  apostle  to 
Ephesus  involves  the  consequence  that  authorship  and  destination 
are  both  a  literary  fiction.  The  question,  therefore,  is:  Which  is 
more  probable,  that  the  apostle  put  forth  a  similar  letter  intended  for 
the  reading  of  a  group  of  churches,  following  the  same  general  lines 
of  thought  which  the  situation  in  Colossae  had  led  him  to  adopt  in 
writing  to  the  church  in  that  place,  or  that  a  Christian  of  the  post- 
apostolic  age  availed  himself  of  the  epistle  to  the  Colossians  to  build 


PROBLEMS  OF   NEW  TESTAMENT  STUDY         599 

up  on  the  basis  of  it  a  pseudonymous  letter  which  he  represented 
as  addressed  to  the  Ephesians?  The  trend  of  judgment  seems  to 
be  toward  the  former  view,  but  the  question  is  still  treated  by  New 
Testament  scholarship  as  a  fairly  open  one,  and  must  be  classed 
among  the  problems. 

The  objection  to  the  acceptance  of  Second  Thessalonians  as 
Paul's  on  the  ground  that  the  eschatological  views  embodied  in  its 
apocalyptic  section  are  inconsistent  with  those  expressed  in  First 
Thessalonians  is  accorded  less  weight  than  formerly,  and  there  are 
probably  few  who  would  favor  the  solution  of  the  problem,  advocated, 
for  example,  by  Schmidt,  which  treats  the  apocalyptic  section  as  an 
interpolation.  The  similarity  of  the  epistle  in  much  of  its  content  to 
First  Thessalonians,  though  there  must  of  necessity  have  been  a  con- 
siderable interval  between  them,  is  a  phenomenon  that  doubtless 
requires  explanation;  but  it  must  be  doubted  whether  it  is  not  easier 
to  account  for  this  than  for  the  creation,  with  no  clearly  evident  mo- 
tive, of  an  epistle  so  closely  resembling  Paul's  in  general  tone  and  style; 
yet  proceeding  in  fact  from  another  and  considerably  later  hand. 
Further  investigation  of  the  thought  of  the  apostolic  and  post- 
apostolic  age,  or  the  discovery  of  more  delicate  psychological  tests 
by  which  to  weigh  the  probability  of  an  author  repeating  himself 
after  an  interval  of  some  weeks,  may  be  necessary  before  the  question 
can  be  transferred  from  the  class  of  the  open  to  that  of  the  closed. 

The  problem  of  the  pastoral  epistles  attracted  serious  attention 
some  years  before  the  criticism  of  Baur  dealt  with  the  Pauline  epistles 
as  a  whole.  As  early  as  Schleiermacher,  the  Pauline  authorship  of 
First  Timothy  was  disputed,  and  others  soon  extended  the  doubt  to 
Titus  and  Second  Timothy.  Nor  could  this  have  failed  to  be  the 
case  as  soon  as  the  New  Testament  was  dealt  with  in  the  critical 
spirit.  The  differences  between  these  letters  and  the  letters  gener- 
ally accepted  as  Paul's,  in  vocabulary,  style,  and  the  reflected  con- 
dition of  the  churches,  as  well  as  the  difficulty  of  finding  a  place  for 
them  in  the  life  of  Paul,  as  this  is  known  to  us  from  the  Acts  or  from 
the  accepted  letters,  combine  to  present  a  problem  which  could  not 
but  raise  the  question  whether  these  letters  really  belong  to  the 
lifetime  of  the  apostle,  or  are  not  rather  to  be  assigned  to  a  consider- 
ably later  period.  The  question  formerly  argued  as  a  simple  alter- 
native, genuine  or  not  genuine,  has  of  late  taken  the  form  of  a 
choice  among  these  possibilities:  wholly  Pauline,  partly  Pauline, 
wholly  post-Pauline.  To  many  scholars  it  has  become  almost  an 
axiom  that  these  letters  are,  at  any  rate,  not  wholly  Pauline.  But 
it  is  recognized  with  greater  clearness  than  formerly  that  to  point 
out  difficulties,  even  serious  or  seemingly  insuperable  difficulties, 
in  the  way  of  ascribing  the  letters  to  the  apostle,  is  not  to  solve  the 
whole  problem;   the  task  of  the  historian  is  to  say,  not  only  when 


600  "  NEW  TESTAMENT 

the  letters  could  not  have  been  written,  but  when  they  were  written. 
And  the  attempt  to  find  for  them  —  or  for  the  non-Pauline  portions 
of  them,  if  they  be  recognized  as  of  composite  character  —  a  location 
subsequent  to  Paul's  death,  to  which  they  fit  themselves  more  per- 
fectly than  to  any  point  in  his  life,  lacks  something  as  yet  of  perfect 
success.  On  the  whole,  the  unity  or  composite  character  of  these 
letters,  the  period  from  which  they  come  or  the  periods  from  which 
their  component  elements  arose,  the  situation  in  the  apostle's  life 
which  they  or  their  Pauline  elements  reflect,  or  the  situation  which 
the  later  author  sought  to  meet  and  affect  by  them  —  these  must 
still  be  accounted  as  problems,  on  which,  indeed,  many  scholars  have 
made  up  their  minds,  but  which  to  New  Testament  scholarship  as 
such  are  still  problems  for  future  investigation. 

The  synoptic  gospels.  It  might  seem  that  the  diligent  labor 
which  since  the  days  of  Schleiermacher,  Eichhorn,  and  Gieseler  has 
been  bestowed  upon  the  problem  of  the  origin  of  the  synoptic  gospels, 
in  which  is  included,  of  course,  that  of  their  relation  to  one  another, 
would  before  this  have  sufficed,  not  only  to  propose  every  possible 
hypothesis,  but  also  to  reach  a  definite  solution  through  the  elimina- 
tion of  those  that  are  inadequate.  It  is  true  that  the  field  of  debate 
and  possible  difference  of  opinion  has,  in  the  judgment  of  most 
scholars,  been  very  greatly  narrowed.  That  the  gospels  are  inter- 
related, not  simply  independent  narratives  of  events  in  part  the  same 
is  universally  confessed.  That  the  relation  between  them  is  mediated 
in  part,  and  indeed  mainly,  by  written  documents,  is  the  judgment 
of  the  great  majority  of  those  who  have  studied  the  problem  at  first 
hand.  That  Mark,  or  a  document  nearly  identical  with  it,  was  a  chief 
source  of  the  first  and  third  gospels,  and  that  these  two  gospels  had 
also  another  common  source,  is  almost  as  generally  held.  But  the 
demonstration  of  these  propositions,  granting  them  to  be  demon- 
strated, falls  far  short  of  a  complete  solution  of  the  problem.  The 
predication  of  a  common  source  of  Matthew  and  Luke  additional 
to  the  Mark  source  but  inadequately  accounts  for  the  facts.  There 
is  much  in  the  peculiar  relation  of  the  non-Marcan  elements  as  found 
respectively  in  Matthew  and  Luke  to  indicate  that,  even  aside  from 
the  infancy  narratives,  and  other  portions  of  these  gospels  that  may 
perhaps  be  treated  as  fragmentary,  the  non-Marcan  source  of  Matthew 
and  Luke  is  resolvable  into  distinguishable  elements,  which  call  for 
enumeration  and  identification.  Nor  is  this  probably  the  end  of 
the  scholar's  task  in  this  direction.  For  there  are  facts  that  suggest 
at  least  the  possibility  that  when  the  sources  immediately  employed 
in  common  by  Matthew  and  Luke,  or  by  either  of  them  alone,  have 
been  enumerated,  these  documents  themselves  will  call  for  analysis 
into  the  elements  from  which  they  were  derived.  The  preponderance 
in  threefold  material  of  the  agreements  of  Mark  and  Luke  against 


PROBLEMS   OF   NEW    TESTAMENT  STUDY         601 

Matthew,  and  of  Mark  and  Matthew  against  Luke,  over  those  of 
Matthew  and  Luke  against  Mark,  has  long  been  recognized,  and  its 
cardinal  importance  for  the  synoptic  problem  has  been  perceived. 
But  this  preponderance  of  the  two  kinds  of  agreement  over  the  third 
does  not  annihilate  the  third  class  of  agreements,  or  justify  the 
ignoring  of  them.  This  has,  indeed,  been  clearly  recognized,  espe- 
cially of  late  years,  nor  have  there  been  lacking  proposals  by  which 
this  third  class  might  be  accounted  for.  Yet  it  must  be  confessed 
that  this  unexplained  remainder  still  awaits  a  satisfactory  solution, 
and  that  in  it  lurks  the  possibility  of  a  discovery  which  may  yet 
greatly  modify  the  now  generally  accepted  theories. 

That  this  problem  probably  lies,  as  has  already  been  suggested, 
partly  in  the  realm  of  textual  criticism,  and  that  its  solution  will 
perhaps  come  through  a  clearer  recognition  than  has  been  usual 
of  the  existence,  in  respect  to  the  synoptic  gospels  at  least,  of  a 
frontier  where  textual  and  documentary  criticism  meet  and  merge, 
points  to  the  necessity  that  the  study  of  the  details  of  the  synoptic 
problem  be  supplemented  by  an  investigation  of  the  principles  in 
accordance  with  which  such  problems  are  to  be  solved.  It  is  a  fair 
question  whether  further  progress  in  this  field  of  inquiry  would  not 
be  most  facilitited  by  a  clear  exposition  of  the  canons  in  accordance 
with  which  it  i?  necessary  to  proceed  in  the  process  of  discovering 
the  nature  of  the  relation  between  documents,  between  which  there 
is  evidently  a  relation  of  some  kind. 

Of  the  problems  pertaining  to  the  synoptic  gospels,  other  than 
that  of  their  origin  and  relation  to  one  another,  such  as  their  date 
and  the  specific  purpose  of  each,  it  is  not  needful  to  speak  at  length. 
In  so  far  as  fairly  definite  results  have  not  already  been  reached, 
the  solution  of  them  is  likely  to  be  involved  in  that  of  the  main  ques- 
tion of  the  origin  and  mutual  relation  of  these  gospels. 

The  hook  of  Acts.  Peculiar  interest  must  always  attach  to  the 
book  of  Acts  as  the  one  work,  dating  from  the  early  age  of  the  church 
and  having  any  plausible  claim  to  trustworthiness,  that  gives  a  con- 
nected narrative  of  events  in  the  apostolic  age.  Inferior  as  an  author- 
ity to  the  strictly  first-hand  testimony  of  the  Pauline  letters,  it 
possesses,  by  virtue  of  the  systematic  scheme  of  events  which  it 
furnishes,  a  value  which  even  the  Pauline  letters  lack.  This  unique 
position  of  the  book  among  the  sources  for  the  rise  of  Christianity 
gives  a  peculiar  importance  to  the  problem  of  its  authorship,  sources, 
and  date.  That  it  employed  sources,  that  these  were  of  unequal 
value,  and  that  among  these  the  "  we-document "  is  of  first-class 
authority,  quite  equal  in  its  way  to  the  Pauline  letters,  are  among  the 
assured  results  of  criticism.  But  how  much  the  we-document  included, 
whether  the  author  of  the  we-source  is  also  the  compiler  of  the  whole 
work,  what  the  other  sources  were,  of  what  value  they  are,  when  the 


602  NEW  TESTAMENT 

book  was  written  and  with  what  purpose  —  all  these  questions  are 
still  in  litigation.  Progress  toward  a  final  solution  of  them  can  be 
made  only  by  the  slow  process  of  even  more  careful  exegesis,  more 
exhaustive  and  minute  archaeological  research,  and  even  more 
critical  weighing  of  evidence  and  sifting  of  hypotheses.  Fortunately, 
in  all  these  lines  progress  is  making,  and  it  is  not  unreasonable  to 
hope  both  for  new  light  from  archaeological  discovery  and  for  progress 
toward  assured  results.  As  in  the  case  of  the  gospels,  so  here  also  the 
solution  of  the  problem  will  contribute  to  the  elucidation,  not  only  of 
the  period  covered  by  the  narrative  of  the  book,  but  also  of  that  in 
which  the  book  arose. 

The  Fourth  Gospel.  If  the  synoptic  problem  must  still  be  included 
among  those  that  are  only  partially  solved,  this  is  still  more  emphat- 
ically true  of  the  problem  of  the  Fourth  Gospel.  Once  and  again  in 
the  last  half-century  affirmed  to  be  now  at  length  finally  settled, 
sometimes  by  those  who  have  reaffirmed  its  strict  apostolic  author- 
ship, sometimes  by  those  who  have  reduced  to  a  minimum  its  con- 
nection with  the  circle  of  Jesus'  disciples,  it  persists  in  reappearing 
among  the  most  difficult  and  perplexing  of  all  the  problems  presented 
to  us  by  the  New  Testament.  For  a  time  indeed  there  seemed  to 
be  an  increasingly  general  recognition  that  the  truth  of  the  matter 
lies  at  neither  extreme:  neither  with  those  who  would  make  the 
book  the  naive  record  of  the  aged  John's  recollection  of  Jesus,  nor 
with  those  who  would  assign  it  to  the  latter  half  of  the  second  cen- 
tury and  deny  it  all  connection  with  the  immediate  followers  of 
Jesus  and  to  its  author  all  knowledge  of  his  subject.  But  of  late 
a  reaction  has  set  in,  and  to-day  the  most  diverse  opinions  are  ex- 
pressed by  men  who  have  no  reason  for  disagreeing  other  than  their 
inability  to  interpret  the  facts  alike. 

The  difficulty  of  the  problem,  which  is  so  complex  that  its  elements 
cannot  even  be  enumerated  here,  lies  largely  in  the  apparently  con- 
trary indications  of  the  evidence.  Beneath  the  surface  of  a  smooth 
and  uniform  style  there  lie,  on  the  one  side,  strong  indications  of 
Jewish  authorship  and  Palestinian  origin,  and,  according  at  least  to 
their  prima  facie  meaning,  both  internal  evidence  and  direct  asser- 
tion of  close  association  of  the  author  with  Jesus;  yet,  on  the  other 
hand,  such  divergences  from  the  testimony  of  the  synoptic  gospels, 
not  only  as  respects  the  chronology  of  Jesus'  ministry  and  the  place 
of  his  work,  but  also  as  to  the  manner  and  substance  of  his  teaching, 
and  such  a  reflection  of  the  influence  of  philosophical  thought  not 
otherwise  associated  with  Palestine,  as  suggest  an  author  of  quite 
different  characteristics  from  those  which  we  naturally  attribute  to 
John  the  son  of  Zebedee.  The  external  evidence  is  not  less  perplexing. 
If,  on  the  one  hand,  the  testimony  of  Irenseus  concerning  what  he 
learned  from  Poly  carp,  together  with  his  undoubted  acceptance 


PROBLEMS   OF   NEW  TESTAMENT  STUDY         603 

of  the  fourth  gospel  as  from  John  the  son  of  Zebedee,  seem  to  estab- 
Ush  an  unbroken  chain  of  ancient  testimony  to  the  Ephesian  resi- 
dence of  John  and  his  authorship  of  the  Gospel;  on  the  other,  we  are 
compelled  to  recognize  that  the  silence  of  the  Fathers  of  the  first  half 
of  the  second  century,  and  especially  of  those  who  belonged  to  Asia 
Minor,  the  perplexing  character  of  the  testimony  of  Papias  concern- 
ing two  disciples  of  Jesus  both  bearing  the  name  of  John,  and  the 
great  difficulty  of  accepting  as  conclusive  the  testimony  of  men  who 
ascribe  to  the  same  author  both  the  Apocalypse  and  the  Gospel, 
create  a  situation  which  is  by  no  means  clear  or  easy  of  interpretation. 
The  question  is  one  in  which  sentiment  and  a  prejudice  not  to  be 
wondered  at,  hardly  to  be  condemned,  enter  in  to  complicate  a  pro- 
blem difficult  enough  in  itself.  The  church  wall  not  readily  consent 
to  surrender  the  apostolic  authorship  of  that  Gospel  which  has  ever 
been  to  very  many  the  most  precious  of  the  four.  Yet  it  cannot  be 
doubted  that  in  the  end  a  solution  will  be  found  which  will  do  justice 
to  all  the  evidence,  and  that  this  view  will  find  general  acceptance 
among  scholars,  whatever  their  previous  prejudices  or  predilections. 

The  problem  of  the  Johannine  epistles  is  inseparably  connected 
with  that  of  the  Gospel.  For  the  similarity  of  style  and  spirit  is  so 
great  as  to  compel  the  ascription  of  them  to  the  same  period  and 
group  of  writers;  probably,  indeed,  to  the  same  author. 

The  Apocalypse.  Perhaps  in  respect  to  no  other  book  of  the  New 
Testament  has  so  rapid  and  real  progress  been  made  in  recent  years 
toward  the  obtaining  of  the  key  to  the  understanding  of  it  as  in 
respect  to  the  Apocalypse.  The  value  of  the  historical  method  is  here 
conspicuously  evident.  That  the  book  belongs  to  that  series  of 
apocalypses  of  which  the  first  and  adjacent  centuries  produced  so 
many,  and  the  several  numbers  of  which  were  not  so  much  successive, 
independent  works,  together  constituting  a  class  of  literature,  as 
successive  portions  of  a  stream  from  which  each  author  in  turn  drew 
and  into  which  he  poured  his  contribution  —  this  now  generally 
recognized  fact  is  fundamental  for  the  understanding  of  the  book, 
and  determinative  for  the  method  of  its  interpretation.  It  deals  the 
deathblow  to  all  those  schemes  of  interpretation  which  are  controlled 
by  the  assumption  that  the  key  to  the  meaning  of  the  prediction  in  the 
book  is  to  be  found  in  what  in  the  first  century  or  subsequently  actu- 
ally took  place  in  fulfillment  of  these  predictions.  Add  to  this  recog- 
nition of  the  apocalyptic  character  of  the  book,  and  its  consequent 
relationship  to  other  apocalypses,  that  other  fact,  which  by  no  means 
contradicts  or  detracts  from  the  first  one,  namely,  that  the  book  had 
its  place  and  its  function  in  the  life  and  experience  of  the  early  church, 
and  was  in  this  way  related  to  the  period  in  which  it  arose;  and  the 
further  fact  that  its  date  is  fixed  with  approximate  certainty  for  the 
last  decade    of   the  first  century,  and  a  long  step  has  been  taken 


604  NEW  TESTAMENT 

toward  such  an  understanding  of  the  book  as  will  make  it  a  most 
important  source  for  the  history  of  the  early  days  of  Christianity. 
That  much  remains  to  be  done  in  determining  wuth  greater  definite- 
ness  the  influences  under  which  the  writer  worked,  the  sources  from 
which  he  drew,  the  extent  of  his  own  contributions,  and  the  ends 
that  he  sought  to  achieve,  cannot  obscure  the  fact  that  now  at 
length  the  New  Testament  student  is  in  a  position  to  make  substantial 
progress  in  his  task  of  understanding  this  book,  and  of  deriving  from 
it  its  contribution  to  the  story  of  the  rise  of  Christianity. 

The  epistle  to  the  Hebrews.  Of  the  many  questions  which  the 
epistle  to  the  Hebrews  raises,  several  may  safely  be  reckoned  as  no 
longer  in  the  category  of  the  unanswered.  That  the  letter  was  writ- 
ten, not  by  Paul,  but  by  a  Christian  who  on  the  one  side  shared  in 
general  the  Alexandrian- Jewish  view  of  the  Old  Testament,  and  on 
the  other  side  held,  though  with  much  independence  of  thought, 
substantially  the  Pauline  conception  of  Christianity;  that  it  is  a  letter, 
not  simply  an  essay  under  the  mask  of  a  letter;  and  that  the  danger 
to  which  its  readers  were  exposed  was  not  that  of  a  return  to  Judaism, 
but  of  apostasy  from  Christianity  in  the  direction  of  irreligion  and 
worldliness  —  these  may  be  considered  as  established  propositions. 

The  search  for  the  identity  of  the  author  is  certainly  one  of  legiti- 
mate curiosity.  But  in  view  of  the  negative  results  so  far  achieved, 
and  the  apparent  impossibility  of  connecting  the  book  with  any  one 
the  connection  with  whom  would  facilitate  the  understanding  of  the 
letter  itself,  it  can  scarcely  be  reckoned  as  other  than  one  of  curiosity. 
That  which  is  at  the  same  time  practicable  and  necessary  for  the 
interpretation  of  the  book  is  the  definition  of  the  writer's  intellectual 
and  religious  position,  and  this  must  be  accomplished  through  the 
study  of  the  book  itself.  To  such  a  knowledge  of  the  author  it  is 
scarcely  less  important  to  add  the  determination  of  the  position  of  the 
reader.  And  here  it  is  of  importance,  first,  for  the  understanding  of 
the  letter  to  define  the  intellectual  and  moral  status  of  the  com- 
munity addressed;  and,  second,  for  the  most  effective  use  of  the 
results  of  interpretation  in  the  construction  of  the  history  of  early 
Christianity,  to  locate  the  community  geographically  and  the  writing 
of  the  letter  chronologically.  These  are  to-day  the  open  questions 
respecting  the  epistle  to  the  Hebrews.  Strong  as  is  the  tendency  to 
displace  the  older  view  that  the  readers  were  Jewish  Christians  with 
the  judgment  that  they  were  gentiles,  or  that  they  were,  in  the  view 
of  the  writer,  neither  Jews  nor  gentiles,  but  simply  Christians,  the 
newer  view  can  hardly  be  said  fully  to  have  established  itself  or  com- 
pletely to  have  explained  the  strong  indications  that  the  writer  had 
in  mind  chiefly  men  who  like  himself  had  grown  up  under  Jewish 
influence.  If  Jerusalem  has  been  abandoned  as  the  home  of  those 
addressed,  and  if  the  strong  preponderance  of  opinion  is  toward 


PROBLEMS   OF   NEW  TESTAMENT  STUDY         605 

Rome,  this  also  awaits  more  perfect  substantiation;  and  if  Rome  be 
accepted  as  the  home  of  the  readers,  it  is  still  to  be  decided  whether 
the  letter  was  intended  for  the  whole  Christian  community  in  the  city 
to  which  it  was  sent,  or  to  a  smaller  group  of  Christians.  It  is  evi- 
dent that  all  these  questions  have  an  important  bearing  on  the  contri- 
bution which  this  letter  makes  to  our  knowledge  of  early  Christianity, 
since  on  the  decision  of  them  turns  in  part  our  knowledge  of  the  extent 
to  which,  the  region  in  which,  and  the  time  at  which  the  special  type 
of  Christian  thought  reflected  in  this  letter  was  prevalent. 

First  Peter.  The  authorship  and  date  of  the  epistle  known  as 
First  Peter  must  also  be  reckoned  as  among  the  open  problems  of 
New  Testament  study.  The  excellent  character  of  the  Greek,  the 
distinctly  Pauline  character  of  the  doctrine,  the  clear  literary  depend- 
ence upon  Romans  and  Ephesians,  and  the  destination  of  the  letter 
to  Pauline  churches  are  serious  problems  for  those  who  would  accept 
the  claim  of  the  letter  itself  to  be  from  the  hand  of  Peter.  Yet  an 
explanation  of  all  these  things  may  be  found  in  the  relation  of  Sylvanus 
to  the  writing  of  the  letter,  if  only  it  be  also  admitted  as  possible  that 
Peter  may  in  the  latter  years  of  his  life  have  cooperated  with  Paul, 
or  have  taken  up  the  work  that  Paul  had  laid  down,  and  that  in  this 
period  he  came  to  hold  substantially  Paul's  conception  of  Christianity 
and  was  capable  of  writing  under  the  dominating,  even  if  temporary, 
influence  of  Paul's  own  writings.^  To  many  indeed  such  a  confessedly 
complicated,  and  in  part  conjectural,  hypothesis  is  less  probable  than 
the  simpler,  though  not  less  hypothetical,  view  that  the  letter  was 
written  long  after  Peter's  death  by  a  Pauline  Christian  who  deliber- 
ately assumed  the  name  of  Peter  to  give  greater  weight  to  his  writing. 
The  problem  must  still  be  counted  among  the  unsolved.  Were  the 
Petrine  authorship  established,  and  its  date  definitely  fixed,  the  letter 
would  make  a  most  significant  contribution  to  the  history  of  the 
apostolic  age. 

Respecting  the  remaining  books  of  the  New  Testament  canon  a 
very  few  words  must  suffice.  That  there  is  to-day  so  wide  difference 
of  opinion  as  still  exists  concerning  the  place  of  James  in  the  early 
history  of  Christianity  is  a  testimony  possibly  to  the  perversity  of 
men's  minds,  but  even  more  to  the  difficulty  of  the  problem  which 
may  be  presented  by  a  brief  book  of  almost  purely  ethical  and 
didactic  character.  Such  books  may  be  written  in  almost  any  age. 
Respecting  Jude  and  Second  Peter  the  case  is  different.  The  evi- 
dences of  late  date  are  such  as  almost  to  exclude  them  from  among 
the  sources  for  the  history  of  the  rise  of  Christianity. 

But  if  there  are  in  the  New  Testament  canon  books  which  are 

'  Despite  the  weight  of  B.  Weiss's  name  and  opinion,  we  need  scarcely  reckon 
seriously  with  the  view  that  First  Peter  is  earlier  than  the  Pauline  letters  to  which 
it  shows  relationship. 


606  NEW  TESTAMENT 

so  late  as  perhaps  to  fall  outside  the  scope  of  the  historian  of  the 
origin  of  Christianity,  are  there  outside  the  canon  books  which  are 
of  so  early  date  and  of  such  character  as  to  demand  consideration  as 
possible  sources  for  the  history  of  the  rise  of  Christianity,  and  so 
inclusion  in  the  scope  of  New  Testament  introduction  in  the  sense 
which  we  have  given  to  it?  To  answer  this  question  definitely  and 
specifically  would  carry  us  beyond  the  proper  limits  of  this  paper. 
It  must  suffice  to  answer  that,  as  the  historians  of  the  life  of  Jesus  are 
recognizing  that  they  must  consider  the  possible  value  for  their  science 
of  the  gospel  according  to  the  Hebrews,  the  Oxyrynchus  logia,  and 
any  material  of  like  character  which  may  be  discovered,  so  intro- 
duction, if  it  be  in  fact  the  preliminary  study  of  the  literature  which 
is  available  for  the  history  of  the  rise  of  Christianity,  must  in  like 
manner  consider  all  literature  having  a  prima  facie  claim  to  be 
included  among  such  sources,  and  include  all  that  can  substantiate 
such  claim. 

II.    Literary  Interpretation  of  New  Testament  Books 

The  discovery  of  the  meaning  of  the  individual  books  of  the  New 
Testament,  once  the  culmination  of  New  Testament  study  and  almost 
its  only  clearly  defined  task,  must  now  be  looked  upon  as  a  means 
to  the  still  higher  task  of  constructing  the  history  of  the  origin  of 
Christianity.  Yet  it  retains  a  place  of  eminence,  and  may  properly 
be  designated  as  the  central  division  of  the  whole  field.  For  covering 
the  whole  New  Testament  literature,  all  the  subjects  heretofore 
discussed  prepare  the  way  for  it,  and,  on  the  other  hand,  on  the  results 
of  the  work  of  interpretation  must  be  built  all  subsequent  achieve- 
ment in  historical  construction.  It  is,  so  to  speak,  the  reservoir  into 
which  all  the  preparatory  studies  pour  their  results  and  from  which 
must  be  drawn  the  material  for  the  constructive  historical  work. 

The  problems  of  this  central  division  of  the  field  are  too  numerous 
even  to  catalogue.  There  is  not  a  book  of  the  New  Testament  collec- 
tion that  does  not  present  questions  of  interpretation,  which,  despite 
all  the  work  of  centuries,  still  call  for  further  study.  Progress  in  the 
solution  of  these  problems  will  come  partly  through  the  more  perfect 
performance  of  the  preparatory  tasks,  partly  through  a  clearer  con- 
ception of  the  nature  of  the  interpretative  process  itself.  A  more 
perfect  exegesis  demands  a  more  perfect  lexicography,  a  more  perfect 
grammar,  and,  most  of  all,  perhaps,  a  more  perfect  knowledge  of  the 
thought  of  New  Testament  times  both  in  the  Jewish  and  non-Jewish 
world,  and  a  setting  of  the  books  in  the  bright  light  of  such  knowledge. 
The  effect  of  achievement  in  this  direction  will  be  twofold:  first,  it 
will  enable  us  to  see  with  greater  clearness  the  thoughts  which  the 
New  Testament  writers  meant  to  express;   and,  second,  it  will  help 


PROBLEMS   OF   NEW   TESTAMENT   STUDY  607 

us  to  perceive  the  relative  value  which  they  themselves  put  upon  their 
various  ideas.  It  is  at  this  point  perhaps  that  the  nature  of  the  inter- 
pretative process  calls  for  more  accurate  definition  than  it  has 
generally  received.  For  however  common  it  may  have  been  in  the 
past  to  assume  that  all  a  writer's  thoughts  are  for  him,  and  so  must 
be  for  the  interpreter,  upon  one  unbroken  level,  this  is  certainly  an 
error.  Interpretation  has  for  its  task  the  recovery  of  the  whole  state 
of  mind  of  the  author  of  which  the  passage  or  book  under  considera- 
tion is  the  expression.  But  just  as  surely  as  men  have  different 
thoughts,  so  surely  do  they  themselves  value  their  various  thoughts 
variously.  One  idea  is  simply  an  inheritance  from  the  past,  which 
a  man  holds  without  repugnance,  but  without  enthusiasm.  Another 
is  a  current  notion  that  he  will  use  to-day  for  illustration,  and  to- 
morrow discard  for  its  opposite.  A  third  is  the  central,  vitalizing 
element  of  all  his  thinking,  that  by  which  he  lives  and  for  which  he 
would  be  willing  to  die.  The  interpreter  who  recognizes  the  full 
breadth  and  depth  of  his  task  will  see  that  it  is  just  as  much  his  duty 
to  discover  the  relative  values  which  the  author  puts  upon  his  thoughts 
as  to  find  out  his  thoughts  themselves.  Knowledge  of  the  thought  of 
the  time  will  help  to  solve  the  question  of  genesis;  and  knowledge 
of  genesis  will  help  to  the  discovery  of  value.  But  genesis  and  value 
are  not  necessarily  correlative.  What  is  inherited  from  the  past  is 
often,  and  often  rightly,  precisely  that  which  is  held  most  tenaciously. 
The  problem  of  value  is  often  a  complex  one,  but  it  is  none  the  less 
a  necessary  one.  That  interpreters  are  already  beginning  to  give 
practical  recognition  to  this  important  phase  of  their  task  —  asking, 
for  example,  not  simply  what  ideas  Paul  expresses  in  his  various 
epistles,  but  what  was  the  source  and  genesis  of  these  ideas,  and  how 
they  were  related  to  one  another;  which  are  vital  and  central,  which 
peripheral  and  illustrative  —  is  an  encouraging  mark  of  progress. 
The  principle,  we  must  believe,  is  destined  to  be  yet  more  fully 
recognized,  to  be  more  exactly  defined,  and  to  become  more  influ- 
ential, not  only  in  the  constructive  historical  work,  but  in  exegesis 
proper. 

III.  New  Testament  History 

We  come  at  length  to  consider  that  division  of  New  Testament 
study  in  which,  as  already  indicated,  it  culminates:  New  Testa- 
ment history,  or,  more  accurately  stated,  the  history  of  the  rise  of 
Christianity,  including  both  the  history  of  events  and  the  history  of 
thought.  The  definition  of  the  field  as  that  of  the  rise  of  Christianity, 
rather  than  as  that  for  which  the  books  of  the  New  Testament  furnish 
the  material,  has  already  been  defended.  The  inclusion  of  events 
and  teachings  in  one  general  division  follows  almost  as  a  matter  of 


608  NEW  TESTAMENT 

necessity  from  the  recognition  of  the  problem  of  the  New  Testament 
as  essentially  historical. 

The  division  of  the  field  into  that  of  New  Testament  theology 
and  New  Testament  history,  the  latter  dealing  specially  with  the 
life  of  Christ  and  the  life  of  Paul,  while  doubtless  possessing  some 
practical  advantages,  is  open  to  serious  objection,  if  it  be  considered 
as  anything  more  than  a  division  of  convenience,  and  even  thus  can 
scarcely  escape  separating  things  that  are  intimately  related.  That 
is  really  the  more  scientific  method  of  treatment  which  is  adopted  in 
such  works  as  Weizsacker's  Das  apostolische  Zeitalter  and  Pfleiderer's 
Urchristentum,  but  which  has  been  less  commonly  and  less  thoroughly 
applied  in  the  case  of  the  life  and  teaching  of  Jesus.  For,  in  fact, 
neither  Jesus  nor  Paul  nor  any  of  the  founders  of  Christianity  were 
philosophers  of  the  closet,  who,  dwelling  in  isolation j  wrestled  in 
solitude  with  the  problems  of  ultimate  being,  but  men  of  action  whose 
doing  and  thinking  were  inseparably  knit  together;  and  neither  can 
the  teaching  of  Jesus  be  adequately  understood  in  separation  from  the 
life,  nor  the  doctrine  of  Paul  in  isolation  from  his  whole  experience. 

Nor  can  the  division  of  the  field  be  justified  from  the  point  of  view 
of  the  end  sought.  While  New  Testament  thought,  whether  that  of 
Jesus,  Paul,  Peter,  John,  or  Jude,  was  viewed  as  normative.  New 
Testament  theology  was  naturally  enough  distinct  from  New  Testa- 
ment biography  and  history,  and  scarcely  distinguishable  in  theory 
from  Christian  theology.  The  adoption  of  the  historic  point  of  view 
has  compelled  the  recognition  of  the  necessity  for  distinguishing  the 
teachings  of  the  various  New  Testament  teachers  and  writers;  it 
must  in  the  end  lead  to  the  recognition  of  the  essential  unity  of  the 
historical  problem,  and  bring  all  phases  of  it  under  the  one  category 
of  the  history  of  the  rise  of  Christianity.  If,  as  is  doubtless  the  case, 
divisions  of  the  field  must  be  recognized  for  the  sake  of  practical 
convenience,  the  lines  of  division  will  be  drawn,  not  between  deeds 
and  words,  but  between  the  lives  of  individuals  or  between  successive 
periods.  The  chief  line  of  division  will  then  necessarily  fall  between 
the  life  of  Jesus  and  the  apostolic  age. 

The  life  of  Jesus.  If  we  assume  that  New  Testament  introduc- 
tion has  already  determined  for  us  the  sources  of  the  life  of  Jesus, 
and  that  interpretation  has  given  to  us  in  detail  the  meaning  of 
those  sources,  the  problem  of  the  life  of  Jesus  is  to  reproduce  as 
fully  as  those  sources  make  possible  the  historic  person,  Jesus,  in  a 
true  historic  setting  and  with  a  true  representation  of  his  character, 
deeds,  and  teachings.  Of  the  many  specific  problems  which  are 
involved  in  the  one,  it  must  suffice  to  name  a  very  few  of  the  most 
important  questions  which  confront  the  New  Testament  historian 
to-day. 

And  first  of  all  let  there  be  named  one  which  enters  as  an  element 


PROBLEMS  OF   NEW  TESTAMENT  STUDY         609 

into  every  other  great  problem  that  we  might  name.  I  mean,  the 
historicity  of  the  sources.  The  interpreter  pure  and  simple  may 
ask  for  the  Jesus  of  the  gospels  or  of  a  single  gospel;  the  historian 
must  seek  the  Jesus  of  historic  fact.  However  congenial  to  Christian 
feeling  it  may  be  to  assume  that  the  two  are  identical,  the  New 
Testament  historian  cannot  make  that  assumption.  New  Testament 
introduction  by  its  classification  of  the  sources  and  discovery  of 
their  relation  to  one  another  compels  the  recognition  of  the  unequal 
value  of  different  parts  of  the  record.  But  the  work  which  it  thus 
begins  it  only  begins.  It  furnishes  certain  criteria  for  the  solution 
of  the  question  of  historicity,  but  cannot  of  itself  solve  all  such  ques- 
tions. Statements  of  a  clearly  derivative  character  are,  indeed, 
thereby  discredited.  But  that  an  assertion  is  made  in  a  late  docu- 
ment does  not  prove  it  false.  And  while  the  presence  of  a  statement 
in  the  oldest  sources  creates  a  presumption  in  its  favor  which  is  to 
be  overthrown  only  by  strong  evidence,  yet  the  possibility  of  error 
even  in  an  original  source  cannot  be  a  priori  denied.  And  not  only 
so,  but  the  historian  cannot  ignore  the  fact  that  the  original  sources 
of  the  gospel  narrative  are,  in  part  at  least,  original  only  in  the  sense 
that  they  are  the  original  written  form  of  a  narrative  which  had  been 
transmitted  orally  for  a  period  of  some  years.  Nor  can  he  forget 
that  even  an  eye-witness  can  only,  strictly  speaking,  testify  to  his 
experience,  yet  as  a  rule  must  of  necessity  throw  that  testimony  into 
the  form  of  an  interpretation  of  his  experience,  expressed  in  terms  of 
objective  fact. 

All  these  considerations,  which  pertain  to  the  records  of  the  life 
of  Jesus  in  general,  and  yet  others,  demand  to  be  taken  into  account 
when  the  historian  confronts  the  difficult  question  of  the  historicity 
of  the  miraculous  in  the  gospel  narrative.  That  there  were  even  in 
the  life  of  Jesus  miracles  in  the  sense  of  events  which  lay  outside  the 
realm  of  law,  the  products  of  extra-legal,  unprincipled  divine  action 
—  to  admit  this  is  for  the  historian  so  difficult  to-day,  in  the  face  of  his 
knowledge  of  history,  that  he  is  compelled  at  least  to  scrutinize  with 
extreme  care  the  apparent  evidence  of  such  events.  On  the  other 
hand,  that  Jesus  wrought  miracles  in  the  sense  at  least  in  which,  as 
testified  by  Paul,  Christians  of  the  apostolic  age  wrought  them,  is 
attested  by  evidence  too  strong  to  be  set  aside.  That  there  were  in 
the  life  of  Jesus  miracles  which  transcended  the  limits  of  anything  that 
happened  in  the  apostolic  age  or  has  happened  since,  it  would 
be  rash  to  deny.  For  the  unparalleled  is  not  of  necessity  extra- 
legal or  unhistorical.  But  that  the  gospels  contain  narratives  which, 
on  the  one  hand,  so  far  transcend  human  experience  as  otherwise 
historically  known,  and,  on  the  other  hand,  are  so  lacking  in  the 
support  of  the  oldest  and  most  trustworthy  sources,  or  so  amenable  to 
amendment  on  the  basis  of  the  distinction  between  the  experience 


610  NEW  TESTAMENT 

of  the  observer  and  his  interpretation  of  that  experience,  as  to  forbid 
the  historian  to  give  to  them  unqualified  acceptance,  must  be  admitted. 
No  other  problem  of  the  New  Testament  historian  more  imperatively 
demands  sober  judgment  and  careful  weighing  of  evidence  than  this 
determination  of  the  class  to  which  each  of  the  apparently  miraculous 
events  recorded  in  the  gospels  really  belongs. 

A  second  great  problem  of  the  life  of  Jesus  pertains  to  the  recovery 
of  his  teachings.  As  already  indicated,  the  problem  of  historicity 
confronts  us  here  also.  If  there  is  little  room  for  doubt  concerning  his 
fundamental  ethical  teachings,  or  concerning  his  conception  of  relig- 
ion so  far  as  it  concerns  the  relation  of  men  to  the  heavenly  Father, 
or  concerning  his  claim  of  authority  as  a  moral  teacher  and  as  a 
moral  leader,  yet  the  problem  ceases  to  be  simple  when  it  is  asked 
what  was  his  attitude  toward  the  messianic  idea,  what  he  said  con- 
cerning his  own  nature,  and  what  was  his  expectation  concerning  the 
future  of  himself,  his  disciples,  and  the  nations  of  the  world.  Criti- 
cism and  interpretation  become  intimately  interlaced,  and  questions 
of  detail  not  simply  contribute  to,  but  wait  upon,  the  solution  of 
larger  problems,  such,  for  example,  as  the  intellectual  characteristics 
and  horizon  of  Jesus. 

The  question  of  the  eschatology  of  Jesus  is  to-day  in  the  forefront 
of  discussion.  Do  the  gospels,  when  their  testimony  has  run  the 
gauntlet  of  a  just  and  discriminating  criticism,  and  when  that  testi- 
mony has  been  set  in  the  light  of  full  knowledge  of  the  apocalyptic 
ideas  of  the  time,  give  us  the  evidence  that  Jesus  shared  the  apoca- 
lyptic conceptions  and  expectations  of  his  day,  fitted  his  own  esti- 
mate of  himself  and  of  his  mission  into  the  framework  of  those 
expectations,  and  looked  for  his  own  speedy  return  after  death  to 
inaugurate  in  Palestine  a  reign  of  the  righteous  both  living  and  risen 
from  the  dead;  and  was  this  what  he  meant  when  he  spoke  of  the 
kingdom  of  God  as  nigh  at  hand?  Or  when  we  view  the  testimony 
of  the  gospels  in  the  light  of  the  process  by  which  those  gospels  arose, 
and  of  the  unquestioned  tendency  to  interpret  Jesus'  words  by  the 
conception  of  the  future  held  by  Jew  and  Christian  alike  (though 
not  indeed  in  identical  form) ,  and  in  the  light  of  the  sanitj'-  and  thor- 
ough independence  of  the  thought  of  his  contemporaries  that  are 
so  preeminently  characteristic  of  Jesus,  does  it  become  more  probable 
that  the  church  has  in  its  report  of  Jesus'  teaching  unintentionally 
confused  the  thought  of  Jesus  concerning  the  coming  of  the  kingdom 
of  God  with  his  thought  concerning  the  coming  of  the  Messiah,  and 
unwittingly  assimilated  the  memory  of  his  teachings  to  its  own 
expectations  and  hopes,  than  that  Jesus,  in  other  things  so  independ- 
ent in  his  thought,  and  so  endowed  with  spiritual  insight  and  dis- 
cernment, was  in  this  matter  caught  in  the  stream  of  apocalypticism 
and  assimilated  his  thought  to  that  of  his  age?    The  question  is 


PROBLEMS   OF  NEW  TESTAMENT  STUDY         611 

one  of  far-reaching  significance  for  our  estimate  of  Jesus.  If  the 
trend  of  scholarly  opinion  at  this  hour  seems  almost  wholly  in  one 
direction,  it  is  still  to  be  recognized  that  the  discussion  is  not  yet 
closed,  and  the  final  verdict  may  perhaps  be  different  from  that  of 
this  hour. 

A  third  great  problem  concerns  the  narratives  of  the  resurrection. 
That  behind  these  narratives,  including  the  testimony  of  the  apostle 
Paul,  there  were  veritable  experiencas  of  the  early  Christians;  that 
those  experiences  had  a  mighty  influence  in  the  production  of  the 
early  Christian  church;  and  that  they  kept  alive,  if  they  did  not  create, 
that  faith  which  is  at  the  very  heart  of  Christianity,  it  is  impossible 
to  deny.  But  that  the  narratives  present  peculiar  difficulties  to  the 
interpreter  and  the  historian,  that  the  experiences  are  themselves 
of  a  character  to  call  for  the  most  careful  discrimination  between 
the  interpretation  which  the  witnesses  themselves  put  upon  them 
and  the  objective  facts  that  gave  rise  to  the  experience,  and  that  to 
a  record  of  veritable  experiences  there  may  have  been  added  nar- 
ratives of  inferior  historical  character  —  these  things  also  it  would 
be  rash  to  deny.  The  truth  that  is  at  the  heart  of  the  resurrection 
narratives  and  of  the  faith  of  the  early  church  in  the  resurrection, 
Christianity  will  never  willingly  surrender.  But  neither  will  it  cease 
its  inquiry  into  these  records  until  it  has  determined  with  all  possible 
exactness  what  actually  happened  in  the  experience  of  the  disciples 
and  at  the  tomb  of  Joseph. 

Of  other  problems  that  pertain  to  the  life  of  Jesus,  partly  to  his 
teachings,  partly  to  more  external  matters,  a  bare  catalogue  of  some 
of  the  most  important  must  suffice.  Such  are  the  parentage  of  Jesus 
and  the  historicity  of  the  narratives  of  the  infancy,  the  question 
whether  he  possessed  a  consciousness  of  preexistence,  the  time  and 
length  of  his  ministry,  and  his  relation  to  the  baptism  and  the  Lord's 
supper  which  we  find  as  established  usages  of  the  apostolic  church. 

But  all  these  are  of  minor  consequence,  save  as  they  contribute 
to  the  solution  of  that  central  and  most  vital  problem  of  the  life  of 
Jesus,  and  indeed  of  all  New  Testament  study.  What  is  the  signifi- 
cance of  Jesus  for  religion?  What  is  his  place  in  human  history?  That 
this  cannot  be  solved  by  lexicography  and  grammar,  exegesis  and 
documentary  criticism,  does  not  exclude  it  from  the  province  of  the 
New  Testament  student,  but  only  emphasizes  the  largeness  of  his 
task.  It  is  the  goal  toward  which  all  study  of  the  gospels  must  move, 
the  hope  of  its  attainment  is  the  inspiration  under  which  it  labors. 

The  apostolic  age  naturally  falls  into  three  parts,  or  is  viewed 
from  three  points  of  view:  primitive  Christianity,  the  work  of  Paul, 
the  Christianity  of  the  later  apostolic  age.  That  Paul  was  the  most 
potent  single  personality  in  the  apostolic  age  can  be  doubted  only 
by  supposing  that  the  extant  records  do  not  exhibit  the  facts  in 


612  NEW  TESTAMENT 

anything  like  their  just  proportion.  This,  however,  but  makes  it 
the  more  important  to  obtain  the  clearest  possible  picture  of  Christ- 
ianity as  it  was  before  Paul  became  a  factor  in  the  situation.  Yet 
of  literature  from  this  period  there  is  none,  if  the  early  date  of  James 
be  denied,  and  we  are  therefore  thrown  back  chiefly  upon  the  tes- 
timony of  the  early  chapters  of  Acts  and  the  indirect  evidence  of 
the  epistles  of  Paul.  On  the  basis  of  a  critical  examination  of  this 
evidence,  New  Testament  scholarship  has  to  frame  for  itself  as  accu- 
rate a  representation  as  possible  of  the  company  of  Jesus'  disciples, 
their  faith,  their  hopes,  their  relation  to  one  another,  their  thought 
about  Jesus,  especially  concerning  his  death  and  resurrection,  their 
relation  to  their  fellow  Jews,  the  steps  by  which  they  became  more 
and  more  differentiated  as  a  religious  community  from  them,  and  the 
outward  expressions  of  their  religious  life  in  organization,  worship, 
and  ritual. 

In  the  life  and  work  of  Paul  New  Testament  scholarship  finds  a 
problem  surpassed  in  interest  and  importance  only  by  that  which  is 
presented  by  the  life  of  Jesus.   The  end  to  be  achieved  is  the  discov- 
ery of  the  significance  of  that  life  as  a  reflection  of,  and  a  contribution 
to,  Christianity  in  its  plastic  and  formative  period.    The  problem  is 
psychological  and  biographical  in  its  content,  historical  in  its  aim. 
It  is  a  study  of  the  experience  of  a  man  for  the  purpose  of  understand- 
ing a  great  historic  movement.    It  can  be  solved  only  by  a  genetic 
study,  which,  taking  full  account  of  the  environment,  Greek,  Jewish, 
and  Christian,  shall  trace  the  course  of  Paul's  experience,  his  in- 
tellectual and  religious  life,  from  his  youth  on  through  the  days  of 
his  Pharisaic  zeal  and  of  his  career  as  a  Christian  apostle  to  its  end. 
The  recognition  of  the  genetic  character  of  the  problem  is  not  new. 
Weizsacker,  Holsten,  Peine,  and  Pfleiderer  have  all  dealt  with  it 
from  this  point  of  view.     Nor  is  it  possible  to  enlarge  the  list  of 
the  factors  which  were  influential  in  making  Paul  what  he  was: 
Old  Testament  history  and  literature;  Pharisaic  Judaism;  primitive 
Christianity  and  its  report  of  Jesus  and  his  teaching;    Paul's  own 
personal  experience,  especially  the  vision  of  Jesus  as  raised  from 
the  dead ;  and  Hellenism,  especially  in  its  Alexandrian  Jewish  develop- 
ment.   But  the  task  of  relating  all  these  to  one  another,  and  of  dis- 
covering how  they  acted  and  interacted  in  the  mind  and  life  of  Paul, 
still  calls  for  further  study.     Especially  do  we  desiderate  a  clear 
perception  of  the  significance  which  Paul  attached  to  the  death  of 
Jesus,  and  of  the  sources  and  nature  of  his  thought  about  the  pre- 
existence  of  Jesus.     Not  less  do  we  need  that  which  has  already 
been  spoken  of  as  necessary  in  connection  with  the  problems  of 
literary  interpretation,  —  a  clearer  perception  of  the  values  which 
Paul  himself  attached  to  the  several  sources  from  which  he  drew 
his  thought  and  to  the  several  elements  of  his  thought  itself.    Was 


PROBLEMS  OF   NEW  TESTAMENT  STUDY         613 

the  Old  Testament,  or  Hellenism,  or  the  transmitted  teaching  of 
Jesus,  or  his  own  personal  experience,  the  ultimately  controlling  factor 
in  his  conception  of  what  constituted  the  gospel?  Or  if  to  no  one  of 
them  can  be  attributed  the  place  of  imperator,  how  did  they  relate 
themselves  in  his  thought?  Is  it  possible  to  define  more  exactly 
than  has  yet  been  done  the  precise  attitude  of  Paul  to  the  Old  Testa- 
ment, to  which  he  apparently  ascribed  authority  in  some  sense, 
yet  whose  teachings  on  some  matters  he  unhesitatingly  and  emphat- 
ically set  aside?  To  a  relative  ranking  of  the  sources  from  which  he 
derived  his  opinions  and  convictions  did  there  correspond  a  relative 
ranking  of  these  opinions  and  convictions  themselves?  That  Paul 
was  a  man  of  intense  convictions  there  can  be  no  manner  of  doubt. 
Did  it  result  from  this  that  all  his  opinions  were  convictions  held 
with  equal  intensity  and  assurance;  or  is  it  rather  true  that  the 
few  central  convictions  that  he  held  entered  freely  into  combination, 
which  might  almost  be  described  as  chemical,  with  every  phase  of 
thought  with  which  he  came  into  contact,  appropriating  and  con- 
verting to  their  own  use  whatever  lent  itself  to  such  conversion, 
rejecting  and  consuming  whatever  threatened  itself  to  destroy  those 
governing  ideas  of  the  apostle?  Is  the  gospel  of  Paul  essentially 
and  centrally  eschatological?  Is  reembodiment  as  an  element  of 
the  future  blessedness  of  the  believer  vital  to  his  thought,  or  the 
product  of  his  gospel  combined  with  the  Palestinian  Jewish  anthropo- 
logy? Is  the  Christology  of  the  later  Pauline  letters  the  late  emerg- 
ence of  an  element  held  as  vital  and  central  from  the  beginning 
of  his  Christian  thinking,  or  the  late  unfolding  of  what  was  latent 
in  his  primary  thought,  or  the  product  of  his  primal  conception  of 
Jesus  and  contact  with  a  type  of  thought  with  which  he  came 
into  influential  touch  only  in  the  latter  part  of  his  career?  All 
these  questions  are  but  phases  of  the  search  for  the  real  Paul, 
the  effort  to  present  him  to  ourselves  not  simply  in  a  list  of  his 
deeds  and  a  catalogue  of  his  doctrines,  but  in  the  true  perspective 
of  his  life  and  the  emphasis  of  his  thought;  and  this  again  to  the 
end  that  we  may  more  perfectly  apprehend  the  history  of  the  origin 
of  Christianity. 

The  problems  of  the  later  apostolic  age  are,  as  already  indicated, 
complicated  by  questions  of  the  authorship  and  date  of  the  writings 
that  constitute  the  sources  for  the  period,  and  which  are  either  con- 
fessedly of  uncertain  date  and  authorship,  or  are  the  subject  of  great 
difference  of  opinion  on  these  points.  That  Christianity  is  in  this 
period  struggling  to  adjust  itself  to  its  environment,  not  by  surrender, 
but  by  conquest,  and  this  both  in  respect  to  Judaism  and  Hellenism, 
and  at  the  same  time  to  solidify  the  foundation  on  which  it  rests 
its  faith  —  this  is  fairly  clear.  But  possessing  neither  a  connected 
narrative  of  events  nor  the  clear  presentation  of  any  commanding 


614  NEW  TESTAMENT 

personality  to  guide  it,  scholarship  still  struggles  with  but  imperfect 
success  to  reconstruct  the  story  of  Christianity  in  this  later  period. 
What  were  the  experiences  of  the  Jewish  Christian  communities, 
with  their  predilection  for  pharisaic  legalism  and  apocalyptic  messi- 
anism,  and  confronted  by  the  downfall  of  the  Jewish  temple  and 
state,  are  in  some  measure  reflected  in  the  first  gospel  and  the  Johan- 
nine  apocalypse,  if  not  also  in  the  epistle  to  the  Hebrews.  How  the 
Christian  of  Jewish  extraction,  but  of  universal  sympathies,  sought  to 
commend  the  gospel  to  men  of  Greek  ways  of  thinking,  and  to  trans- 
late it  into  their  forms  of  thought,  we  see  in  the  Johannine  gospel  and 
epistles.  But  it  is  only  as  trees  that  we  see  men  walking.  The  progress 
of  past  years  gives  reason  to  hope  for  still  greater  achievements  in  the 
future,  but  the  goal  of  full  understanding  of  this  period  still  recedes. 

IV.    Indirectly  Contribviory  Sciences 

Concerning  those  lines  of  study  which  in  our  classification  we 
designated  as  indirectly  contributory,  namely,  the  history  of  the  canon, 
the  history  of  the  transmission  and  criticism  of  the  text,  the  history 
of  interpretation  and  of  criticism,  a  very  few  words  must  suffice. 
They  might  all  be  included  under  the  general  title  of  the  history  of 
the  attitude  of  the  church  toward  the  New  Testament  literature. 
Each  division  of  the  field  is  important,  and  each  offers  its  own  peculiar 
problems.  If  the  history  of  interpretation  and  criticism  belongs  to 
New  Testament  study  only  as  the  history  of  any  science  belongs 
to  that  science,  and  has  its  value  chiefly  in  enabling  us  to  criticise 
our  own  efforts  and  achievements  in  the  light  of  the  work  of  our 
predecessors,  a  knowledge  of  the  history  of  the  text,  at  least  its  early 
history,  is  an  indispensable  tool  for  the  recovery  of  the  text.  And 
the  early  history  of  the  canon,  especially  the  history  of  the  process 
by  which  the  conception  of  the  canon  of  the  New  Covenant  arose 
and  the  limits  of  such  canon  were  fixed,  closely  related  as  it  is  to  the 
history  of  the  origin  of  the  books  thus  canonized,  and  showing  the 
attitude  of  the  church  toward  the  literature  which  sprang  from  its 
own  bosom,  is  of  the  highest  value,  not  only  for  the  light  which  it 
throws  back  upon  questions  of  origin  and  date,  and  the  possibilities 
in  respect  to  anonymity,  pseudonymity,  and  the  like,  but  also  as 
defining  to  what  extent  and  in  what  sense  Christianity  was  in  its 
origin  a  book-religion.  The  Hmits  of  this  paper  forbid  discussion, 
or  even  detailed  enumeration,  of  the  problems  in  this  field. 

If  I  have  in  any  measure  truly  apprehended  and  set  forth  the 
nature  of  the  problems  which  to-day  confront  the  student  of  the  New 
Testament,  I  have  shown  that  New  Testament  study  is  to-day  an 
historical  discipline;  that  progress  is  to  be  made  precisely  through 
the  more  perfect  domination  of  it  by  the  recognition  of  its  historical 


PROBLEMS  OF   NEW  TESTAMENT  STUDY         615 

character;  that  large  and  difficult  as  are  the  problems  of  the  New 
Testament  student  as  such,  the  ends  for  which  he  works  and  under 
the  impulse  to  attain  which  he  toils  can  be  adequately  achieved 
only  as  New  Testament  study  is  related,  on  the  one  side,  to  the  study 
of  the  Old  Testament  and  of  later  Judaism,  and,  on  the  other  side, 
to  the  history  of  Christianity  at  large,  and  finally  to  the  history  of 
religion  and  the  study  of  religious  experience. 


SUPPLEMENTARY  PAPERS 

Professor  C.  W.  Votaw,  of  the  University  of  Chicago,  presented  an  interesting 
paper  on  "The  Oxyrhynchus  Sayings  in  Relation  to  the  Gospel-making  Move- 
ment of  the  First  and  Second  Centuries."  The  speaker  said  in  part  that  the 
labors  of  Drs.  Grenfell  and  Hunt,  excavators  for  the  Egypt  Exploration  Fund, 
have  recently  brought  to  our  possession  three  short  portions  of  extra-canonical 
second-century  gospels.  These  papyri  containing  the  Sayings  of  Jesus  were  un- 
earthed at  Oxyrhynchus,  one  hundred  and  twenty  miles  south  of  Cairo,  in  1897 
and  1903.  A  description  of  these  papyri  and  their  condition  followed,  together 
with  a  careful  comparative  analysis  of  the  Sayings.  They  are  in  part  parallel 
to  the  Sayings  of  Jesus  preserved  in  the  canonical  gospels,  somewhat  more  than 
one  half  of  the  new  material  duplicating  what  is  contained  there,  but  in  form 
these  passages  exhibit  considerable  differences  from  the  canonical  accounts  and 
not  a  small  degree  of  independence.  There  are  also  among  the  Oxyrhynchus 
Sayings  some  very  important  ones  which  the  canonical  gospels  do  not  contain. 
Several  of  these  have  parallels  in  extra-canonical  gospel  Sayings  quoted  by  the 
Church  Fathers  of  the  second  and  third  centuries;  a  few  have  no  parallels  in 
any  Christian  literature. 

The  main  problems  discussed  were  the  exact  meanings  of  the  Sayings,  and 
whether  they  are  to  be  attributed  to  Jesus  himself.  The  conclusion  reached  by 
the  speaker  was  that  the  Sayings  are  fragments  from  one,  two,  or  three  second- 
century  gospels;  that  the  collection  or  collections  of  gospel  material  to  which 
these  Sayings  belonged  were  of  considerable  extent;  and  that  these  Sayings,  while 
of  first-century  origin,  have  been  handed  down  without  direct  relation  to  the 
canonical  gospels  and  are  independent  of  any  known  gospel,  even  where  parallel- 
isms exist. 

The  gospel-making  movement  did  not  stop  abruptly  at  100  a.d.,  and  although 
the  canonical  gospels  entered  the  second  century  with  great  prominence  and 
prestige,  there  was  still  to  be  a  long  period  through  which  many  other  gospels  were 
to  compete  with  them  for  public  favor.  The  question  whether  Jesus  could  have 
said  this  or  that  attributed  to  him  in  these  fragments  was  a  question  which 
second-century  Christians  would  scarcely  have  raised,  and  could  not  well  have 
answered.  They  vmderstood  fairly  well,  and  highly  appreciated,  Jesus  and  his 
teaching.  He  was  to  them  of  supreme  interest  and  importance.  But  they  did  not 
apply  a  rigid  method  of  historical  investigation  to  the  oral  and  written  tradition 
of  his  life. 

The  canonical  gospels  increasingly  manifested  their  superiority  over  all  other 
gospels,  from  the  time  of  their  composition  until  the  latter  part  of  the  second 
century,  when  they  became  the  only  fully  recognized  evangelic  narratives.  They 
early  surpassed  in  favor  and  use  such  collections  as  the  Oxyrhynchus  Sayings 
represent,  for  they  were  in  the  main  nearer  in  form  to  the  original  utterances  of 
Jesus,  better  in  arrangement,  and  more  complete  in  their  contents.  It  was  right 
that  they  should  increase,  and  these  other  competing  gospels  decrease. 

Professor  William  Benjamin  Smith,  of  Tulane  University,  New  Orleans,  La., 
presented  a  paper  on  the  "Meaning  of  the  Epithet  Nazorean  (Nazarene)."  The 
text  of  the  paper  was  drawn  from  Matthew  2:  22-23,  "  Being  warned  of  God  in 
a  dream,  he  withdrew  into  the  parts  of  GaHlee,  and  came  and  dwelt  in  a  city  called 
Nazareth:  that  it  might  be  fulfilled  which  was  spoken  by  the  prophets,  that  he 
should  be  called  a  Nazorean."  In  a  most  interesting  critical  discussion  the  speaker 


SUPPLEMENTARY  PAPERS  617 

pointed  out  the  iinreality  of  the  reason  assigned  in  the  text,  and  that  it  was  no- 
where spoken  through  the  prophets  that  he  should  be  called  the  Nazorean;  but 
inasmuch  as  the  name  was  attached  to  Jesus,  the  least  objectionable  way  to  derive 
it  was  from  a  place  of  early  residence.  A  city  or  town  called  Nazareth,  however, 
seems  to  have  been  a  geographical  imagination,  unmentioned  in  the  Old  Testa- 
ment, in  the  Talmud,  in  Josephus,  in  Apocrypha,  or  anywhere  prior  to  Eusebins. 
In  fact,  none  of  the  histories  or  traditions  mention  the  city  or  town  as  based  on 
decisive  testimony. 

The  epithet  "Nazorean,"  however,  occurs  repeatedly  in  the  oldest  layers  of  the 
gospel-story,  without  any  suggestion  of  tendency,  especially  in  Acts.  It  is  used 
also  in  the  Talmud  and  Koran.  The  name  seems  to  have  been  highly  distinctive 
and  familiar,  and  it  would  be  passing  strange  if  it  were  derived  from  a  most  obscure 
village  otherwise  unknown.  It  is  used  most  often  in  denoting  the  Christians  and 
in  nearly  all  of  its  etymological  relations  is  connected  with  the  Hebrew  Nosrim. 
This  word  occurs  repeatedly  in  the  Old  Testament  in  the  one  sense  of  "guards" 
or  "watchers,"  and  its  root, nasar,  is  one  of  the  best  known  in  the  Semitic  lan- 
guages, meaning  always  to  watch,  observe,  keep  guard,  defend,  and  preserve.  In 
the  latter  sense  it  occurs  repeatedly  in  the  cuneiform  inscriptions,  with  the  same 
meaning.  Now  since  ha-N6srIm  was  thus  the  perfectly  familiar  term  for  the 
Guards,  the  Preservers,  it  follows  that  when  the  term  was  used,  or  its  Greek  equi- 
valent "ot  vaCatpaioi"  the  suggestion  of  the  weU-known  meaning  was  inevitable. 
Even  if  the  name  had  actually  been  derived  from  the  hamlet  of  Nazareth,  no  one 
would  have  thought  so ;  every  one  would  have  thought  of  the  household  meaning 
instantly  and  irresistibly.  If  a  class  of  persons  were  called  the  Preservers,  every 
one  would  understand  it  so,  as  they  that  'preserve  ;  no  one  would  dream  of  deriving 
their  name  from  the  unknown  village  of  Preserveth.  We  insist  upon  this  because 
it  seems  decisive. 

It  seems  reasonably  certain  that  vo^wpoioj  had  originally  nothing  to  do  with 
the  imaginary  village  Nazareth;  that  it  was  a  descriptive  appellative,  like  others 
so  commonly  appended  to  Divine  names,  both  classic  and  Semitic  (cf.  Zeus 
Xenios,  Hermes  Psychopompos,  Dionysos  Hypokolpios,  Apollo  Pythios,  and  the 
like);  that  it  designated  the  Deity  in  the  aspect,  character,  or  person  of  Guardian, 
Preserver,  being  nearly  identical  in  meaning  with  i  *lij o-ovj,  the  Saviour. 


SECTION  E 
HISTORY  OF  THE  CHRISTIAN  CHURCH 


SECTION  E 
HISTORY  OF  THE  CHRISTIAN  CHURCH 


{Hall  2,  September  24,  10  a.  m.) 

Chairman:   Professor  Eri  Baker  Hulbert,  University  of  Chicago. 
Speakers:   Professor  Adolf  Harnack,  University  of  Berlin. 
Professor  Jean  Reville,  University  of  Paris. 


THE    RELATION    BETWEEN    ECCLESIASTICAL    AND 
GENERAL  HISTORY 

BY    KARL    GUSTAV    ADOLF    HARNACK 

{Translated  from  the  German  by  Prof.  T.  Bailey  Saunders,  by  courtesy  of  The 

Contemporary  Review) 

[Karl  Gustav  Adolf  Harnack,  Professor  of  Sacred  History,  University  of  Berlin, 
Germany,  b.  May  7,  1851,  Dorpat,  Russia.  Privat-docent,  Leipzig,  1874-76; 
Special  Professor,  Leipzig,  1876-79;  Regular  Professor,  Giessen,  1879-86; 
ibid.  Berlin,  1886- — .  Member  Royal  Academy  of  Sciences  of  Prussia,  Scientific 
Committee  of  Royal  Prussian  Historical  Institute  of  Rome,  and  various  other 
societies.  Author  of  History  of  Old  Christian  Ldterature;  Text-book  of  the  History 
of  Dogmas;  The  Essential  Characteristics  of  Christianity;  together  with  many 
other  noted  works  and  papers  on  sacred  history.] 

How  is  ecclesiastical  history  related  to  general  history?  This  is 
a  question  which  is  either  not  treated  at  all  in  text-books  on  ecclesi- 
astical history  or  treated  very  briefly.  The  omission  is  easy  to  under- 
stand, for  it  proceeds  from  a  view  taken  in  earlier  times  and  not  yet 
exploded.  The  ancient  and  the  medieval  church  regarded  the  his- 
tory of  the  church  as  something  that  differed  from  the  history  of 
the  world.  The  Catholic  churches  of  our  own  day  still  regard  it  in 
the  same  light.  They  are  convinced  that  the  church  is  under  God's 
special  guidance,  possesses  an  infallible  doctrine,  is  governed  by  men 
appointed  by  the  Deity  Himself,  and  has  received  a  promise  that  it 
shall  remain  unchanged  until  the  end  of  all  things.  The  church  and 
its  affairs  are  thus  sharply  separated  from  the  rest  of  history;  and 
while  the  rest  of  history,  of  course,  exercises  an  effect  on  the  church, 
the  effect  is  only  on  the  circumference  and  does  not  reach  the  centre. 

This  way  of  looking  at  the  matter  found  its  classical  expression 
in  the  earliest  account  which  we  possess  of  ecclesiastical  history, 
namely,  that  given  by  Eusebius.  According  to  him  the  history  of 
the  church  is  only  the  further  operation  and  fuller  development  of 
the  fact  that  in  Jesus  Christ  the  divine  Logos  came  down  from 
heaven,  and  since  that  time  the  history  of  the  church  has  a  place 


622  HISTORY   OF   THE   CHRISTIAN   CHURCH 

within  ordinary  history  as  a  history  of  another  kind.  This  is  a  view 
which  is  in  no  way  affected  by  putting  the  beginnings  of  ecclesiastical 
history  in  some  sense  or  other  as  far  back  as  the  beginnings  of  the 
human  race.  Such,  indeed,  was  the  attempt  which  Eusebius,  fol- 
lowing Justin  Martyr,  tried  to  make,  and  which  Augustine  actually 
carried  out  in  his  great  work  On  the  City  of  God.  But  by  going  back 
to  the  beginnings  of  the  human  race  it  is  obvious  that  the  whole 
conception  of  a  church  and  its  history  may  easily  be  frittered  away 
and  destroyed.  There  were  liberal  theologians  in  early  times  and 
in  the  Middle  Ages  who  thus  destroyed  it  —  Abelard,  for  instance. 
This,  however,  was  not  the  way  in  which  the  church  itself  understood 
that  its  history  should  be  carried  back.  On  the  contrary,  it  clings  to 
the  belief  that  within  the  general  course  of  events  there  is  a  sacred 
history  which  is  supernatural. 

The  Protestants  of  the  sixteenth  century  did  not  really  break  with 
this  conception.  They  did,  indeed,  deny  that  the  church  with  its 
external  forms  and  its  government  was  a  divine  creation.  The  whole 
idea  of  the  church  they  explained  from  within.  But  of  the  spirit- 
ualized church,  which  they  often  saw  only  in  the  form  of  a  small 
community,  they  asserted  very  much  the  same  thing  as  Catholicism 
maintains  of  its  big  church.  They  hardly  did  anything  to  shake  the 
notion  that  there  were  two  kinds  of  events,  and  the  church  remained, 
as  before,  the  scene  of  a  second  history.  Orthodoxy  in  the  Protestant 
churches  in  our  own  day  still  persists  in  this  view.  Whether  there 
is  any  fundamental  justification  for  it  is  a  question  on  which  we  shall 
touch  at  the  close;  but  certain  it  is  that  in  the  form  in  which  ortho- 
doxy still  clings  to  the  idea  it  is  untenable.  The  very  fact  that  there 
is  absolutely  no  criterion  by  which  we  can  distinguish  two  kinds 
of  history  is  enough  to  destroy  it.  Moreover,  it  is  also  shown  to  be 
incorrect  by  the  further  fact  that  all  the  forces  which  the  church  was 
unwilling  to  recognize  as  of  equal  importance  with  itself,  it  had  to 
combat  as  enemies,  thus  producing  a  state  of  permanent  unrest. 
Finally,  experience  itself  refutes  this  ^dew,  for  only  when  belief  in 
a  special  kind  of  history  was  given  up  did  the  history  of  the  church 
begin  to  be  understood. 

It  was  in  the  seventeenth  century  that  certain  enlightened  spirits 
first  shook  off  this  wrong  notion.  The  eighteenth  century  further 
developed  the  knowledge  thus  won;  in  the  nineteenth  it  was  partly 
obscured  again,  but  in  the  end  it  held  its  own.  We  can  now  say: 
The  history  of  the  church  is  part  and  parcel  of  universal  history,  and 
can  he  understood  only  in  connection  vnth  it. 

But  if  the  history  of  the  church  is  a  part  of  universal  history,  it  is 
closely  bound  up  with  other  factors  and  developments,  not  as  some- 
thing alien,  but  as  something  akin  to  them;  nay,  it  is  only  when  thus 
bound  up  that  it  exists  at  all.    The  more  attention  we  pay  to  these 


ECCLESIASTICAL  AND  GENERAL  HISTORY        623 

connections,  the  better  we  shall  understand  it.   There  are  four  large 
departments  of  history  with  which  we  are  here  specially  concerned : 
I.  Political  history. 
II.  The  history  of  religion  in  general. 

III.  The  history  of  philosophy  and  of  knowledge  as  a  whole. 

IV.  Economic  history. 

I  have  purposely  refrained  from  speaking  of  the  history  of  civiliza- 
tion in  particular,  because  it  cannot  be  treated  scientifically  without 
being  divided  into  various  sections. 


Political  history,  in  the  widest  sense  of  the  word,  is  historj'  proper; 
for  on  the  way  in  which  men  are  formed  into  communities,  every- 
thing else  that  happens  and  all  development  depend.  We  may  say, 
then,  that  the  history  of  the  state  is  the  backbone  of  general  history. 
If  we  fail  to  recognize  this  we  reduce  history  to  a  series  of  romances 
or  a  sort  of  clever  argument.  For  the  scientific  study  of  ecclesiastical 
history,  therefore,  we  must  insist,  first,  that  the  political  or  social 
character  of  the  church  shall  be  kept  well  in  mind;  and  secondly, 
that  its  relation  to  the  state  in  which  it  grew  up,  and  to  the  states 
and  communities  in  and  among  which  it  lives,  shall  be  carefully 
examined. 

That  the  church  is  a  political  organization  has,  of  course,  in  some 
form  or  other,  always  been  recognized.  Even  Eusebius  spoke  of  it  as 
a  "polity."  But  it  was  only  with  the  historian  Mosheim  that  the 
first  serious  attempt  was  made  to  present  this  point  of  view.  Up  to 
his  time  people  shrank  from  doing  so,  because  they  feared,  not 
without  reason,  that  the  "  divine  "  nature  of  the  church  would  suffer 
if  its  political  character  were  placed  in  the  foreground.  The  clue 
which  Mosheim  gave  was  not  sufficiently  attended  to  by  the  philo- 
sophical historians  in  the  Romantic  movement  during  the  first  half 
of  the  nineteenth  century,  unless  I  except  Richard  Rothe;  nay,  even 
now  the  correct  view  has  yet  to  make  its  way. 

The  results  which  it  gives  us  I  may  state  at  once :  In  every  age  the 
first  thing  to  consider  is  the  constitution  of  the  church.  But  in  every 
period  of  the  history  of  the  church  its  constitution  has  been  dependent 
on  the  general  political  conditions  and  ideas  of  the  time;  or,  to  put  the 
matter  more  accurately,  the  church  has  at  all  times  shown  a  tendency  to 
copy  within  itself  the  constitution  of  the  state  in  which  it  lived,  or  to 
prescribe  to  the  state  the  constitution  which  the  state  was  to  have. 

The  truth  of  this  proposition  may  be  proved  at  every  point  in  the 
history  of  the  church.  Consider  the  Roman  Catholic  Church  —  what 
else  is  it  but  the  old  Roman  Empire  reproduced  in  the  ecclesiastical 
domain?  At  the  opposite  pole  to  the  Roman  Church  stand  the  Free 


624  HISTORY  OF  THE  CHRISTIAN  CHURCH 

Congregational  churches.  But  do  not  they,  too,  correspond  to  the 
political  ideal  which  prevailed  in  the  land  of  their  birth  at  the  time 
when  they  arose,  and  still  prevails?  And  all  the  different  forms  of 
churches  which  lie  between  these  two  extreme  limits  —  are  they 
not  all  of  them  ecclesiastical  imitations  of  the  political  constitutions 
in  and  among  which  they  exist?  Everywhere  the  constitution  of 
the  church  has  followed  the  pattern  set  for  the  time  being  by  the 
state,  or  anticipated  the  constitution  which  the  state  was  to  take. 

But  by  tending  to  copy  the  constitution  of  the  state  in  which  it 
lives,  the  church  comes  into  a  double  relation  to  the  state  —  a 
friendly  and  a  hostile  relation.  Up  to  a  certain  point  this  tendency 
helps  the  state  to  carry  out  its  necessary  aims.  Yet  on  the  other 
hand,  as  a  result  of  this  same  tendency,  the  church  becomes  the  rival 
of  the  state.  The  state  must  inevitably  desire  that  everything  devel- 
oped within  its  borders  shall  be  homogeneous  with  it,  so  far  as  law, 
authority,  and  the  relations  of  the  various  classes  are  concerned.  In 
this  sense  it  is  very  glad  to  extend  its  toleration,  nay,  even  to  give 
privileges,  to  a  community  formed  in  accordance  with  its  regulations. 
But  the  church,  as  a  religious  community,  also  possesses  rights  of  its 
own,  and  as  soon  as  it  extends  these  over  the  whole  field  of  its  political 
organization,  it  enters  into  secret  or  open  opposition  to  the  state:  it 
becomes  its  rival. 

The  conflicts,  however,  which  in  these  circumstances  were  inevit- 
able, led  to  complications  of  a  still  greater  kind.  For,  in  the  first 
place,  the  church  claimed  to  be  the  legitimate  successor  of  the  theo- 
cratic Jewish  State,  however  much  it  also  emphasized  the  fact  that 
it  itself  was  something  new  and  of  a  different  nature.  In  making  this 
claim  it  at  once,  protest  as  it  might  to  the  contrary,  advanced  polit- 
ical pretensions  of  the  most  comprehensive  character,  even  if  at  first 
it  asserted  them  only  negatively.  In  the  second  place,  the  church 
was  not  content  with  simply  copying  within  itself  elements  in  the 
organization  of  the  state.  It  refused  to  allow  anything  that  it  copied 
to  have  any  value  outside  its  own  pale.  By  its  own  marriage-law 
it  depreciated  the  civil  marriage-law.  By  the  development  of  its 
official  hierarchy  it  lowered  the  authority  of  the  state  officials.  By 
its  Papacy  it  lowered  the  Imperial  dignity.  Finally,  in  the  third 
place,  after  compelling  the  state  to  accept  the  Christian  creed,  it  put 
the  state  into  a  position  of  the  greatest  difficulty.  By  accepting  the 
creed,  the  state  placed  itself  on  the  ground  taken  by  the  church, 
and  declared  the  ideals  of  the  church  to  be  the  right  and  the  highest 
ideals.  If  it  was  now  driven  to  defend  itself  against  the  claims  of  the 
church  to  be  master,  it  was  compelled  to  fight  with  broken  weapons, 
because  it  dared  not  attack  the  ultimate  principles  of  the  church 
from  which  its  own  power  was  derived.  The  "  Christian  "  state,  then, 
when  confronted  by  the  church,  was  bound  to  come  off  worst;   for 


ECCLESIASTICAL  AND  GENERAL  HISTORY        625 

it  was  only  half  what  the  church  was  entirely.  The  Christian  state 
is  the  state  undermined  and  sucked  dry  by  the  church.  It  is  like  a 
towering  tree  brought  to  decay  by  the  creeper  that  has  fed  on  its  sap. 
But  when  the  state  decays  the  national  consciousness  is  always  in 
danger  of  disappearing  as  well. 

With  certain  exceptions,  however,  things  did  not  come  to  this  pass 
even  in  the  Middle  Ages.  In  the  East  the  state  found  ways  and 
means  of  taking  over  important  functions  of  theocratic  government, 
and  of  effecting  an  intimate  fusion  between  church  and  nationality. 
In  the  West  the  tension  between  church  and  state  led  to  struggles 
which  promoted  the  progress  of  civilization;  for  at  the  very  moment 
when  the  church  appeared  to  have  attained  its  aim,  the  proof  was 
afforded  that,  however  capable  it  may  be  of  winning  a  victory,  the 
church  is  unable  to  keep  possession  of  the  field.  Nay,  the  great 
developments  then  began  which  led  to  the  formation  of  our  modern 
states  and  of  the  Protestant  churches.  It  is  part  of  the  very  charac- 
ter of  modern  states  that  they  no  longer  are,  or  aim  at  being,  Christ- 
ian in  the  same  sense  as  medieval  states,  and  Protestant  churches 
have  either  wholly  or  in  part  given  up  all  theocratic  pretensions. 
But  in  this  connection  we  must  not  overlook  the  fact  that  even  the 
constitutions  and  ecclesiastical  ideals  of  the  Protestant  churches, 
although  they  derive  their  basis  from  the  inherent  nature  of  Protest- 
antism and  from  the  Bible,  are  in  strict  dependence  on  the  political 
theories  and  ideals  which  modern  times  have  produced.  The  state 
church,  the  national  church,  more  particularly  as  it  is  developed  in 
Germany,  offers  in  all  its  stages  a  precise  parallel  to  the  developments 
of  the  modern  state,  and  the  various  theories  of  the  state.  In  the 
same  way,  wherever  free  churches  are  formed,  they  are  dependent 
upon  the  republican  and  democratic  ideas  of  the  period.  The  converse, 
it  is  true,  has  also  happened:  a  Christian  idea  has  preceded  the  polit- 
ical idea;  but  it  was  the  political  idea  which  first  produced  an 
ecclesiastical  polity  corresponding  to  it.  The  Christian  idea,  too,  as 
a  rule,  asserted  itself  only  when  political  ideas  akin  to  it  came  to  its 
aid. 

This  shows  us  that  the  study  of  political  history  is  the  necessary 
preliminary  to  the  study  of  ecclesiastical  history.  Without  it  the 
most  important  developments  remain  unintelligible.  In  the  history 
of  the  church,  however,  every  stage  of  the  political  history  of  the  last 
two  thousand  years  is  still,  as  it  were,  actually  present.  In  the  two 
great  Catholic  churches,  the  Roman  and  the  Grseco-Russian,  the 
forms  and  tendencies  of  the  Middle  Ages  are  embodied;  they  still 
live  on  in  them  and  still  threaten  us  to-day  —  in  Jesus  Christ's  name 
—  with  that  Babylonian  theocracy  which  destroys  all  national  and 
individual  freedom.  We  know  how  it  came  about  that  this  universal 
theocratic  ideal  could  establish  itself  on  Christian  ground.    A  great 


626  HISTORY  OF  THE  CHRISTIAN  CHURCH 

fraternity  embracing  the  whole  human  race  —  have  we  not  there  one 
of  the  inaUenable  ideals  of  Christendom,  yet  also  an  ideal  which  gave 
room  for  the  mistaken  notion,  nourished  as  it  was  by  Old  Testament 
ideas,  that  this  union  could  be  attained  in  the  quickest  and  safest 
way  by  a  universal  political  church-system?  The  notion  is  far  from 
being  exploded,  but  it  will  be  driven  from  the  field  just  in  proportion 
as  the  ideal  of  a  Christian  fraternity  on  the  basis  of  freedom  becomes 
a  power. 

On  the  basis  of  freedom  —  and  on  the  basis  of  nationalities;  for 
another  lesson  which  political  history,  when  examined  in  connection 
with  ecclesiastical  history,  teaches  us  is  that  in  the  latter  nationalities 
play  an  enormous  part,  and  that  any  attempt  to  get  rid  of  them  is  in 
vain.  Every  great  nationality  has  made  itself  at  home  in  the  church 
in  its  own  way.  We  can  distinguish  a  Greek,  a  Latin,  a  German,  an 
English,  an  American  church-system,  etc.,  etc.,  and  the  distinctions 
that  obtain  here  are  more  important  than  all  others.  They  are  appar- 
ent, above  all,  in  the  mode  of  w^orshipand  in  the  way  in  which  Christ- 
ianity is  practiced;  but  even  the  development  of  doctrine  has  always 
been  subject  to  strong  national  influences.  No  one  who  overlooks 
these  distinctions,  or  explains  them  wrongly,  can  help  falling  into  the 
grossest  mistakes  and  making  history  obscure.  The  Christian  fra- 
ternity at  which  we  aim  will  come,  not  as  a  union  of  denationalized 
individuals,  but  as  a  union  of  friendly  peoples,  each  one  of  which  will 
have  developed  the  best  qualities  of  its  race  and  nationality.  This 
cannot  take  place  unless  each  nation  knows  its  own  and  others' 
national  peculiarities.  Nor  can  the  ecclesiastical  historian  dispense 
with  this  knowledge  if  he  wishes  to  understand  the  past  and  prepare 
for  the  future  of  the  church. 

II 

National  history  leads  us  direct  to  the  history  of  religion  in  general; 
for  the  religions  of  the  peoples  to  which  the  church  came  are  very 
closely  bound  up  with  their  national  peculiarities.  If,  then,  we  are  to 
study  the  history  of  the  Christian  religion,  a  thorough  knowledge  of 
the  religions  of  the  Greek,  the  Roman,  the  Germanic  peoples,  etc.,  is 
necessary.  What  resistance  did  these  religions  offer,  what  kind  of 
resistance  was  it,  in  what  respect  was  it  strongest  and  in  what  weak- 
est, and  by  what  means  did  the  church  overcome  it?  —  these  are  the 
questions  which  at  once  arise  and  demand  an  answer  if  we  are  to 
understand  the  history  of  the  church. 

But  there  is  something  more.  We  should  be  very  short-sighted  if 
we  conceived  the  relation  between  the  Christian  religion  and  other 
religions  solely  as  a  contradiction.  That  they,  too,  have  had  an 
influence  on  the  development  of  the  Christian  religion  has  long  been 


ECCLESIASTICAL  AND  GENERAL  HISTORY        627 

known.  Formerly,  indeed,  it  was  believed  that  this  influence  must 
be  limited  to  the  Christian  heresies.  It  was  held  that  the  existence 
of  the  Gnostic  sects  and  the  rise  of  other  phenomena  were  to  be 
explained  by  the  influence  of  paganism  on  Christianity.  But  it  has 
become  evident  in  an  increasing  degree  that  the  church  itself  was 
also  affected  by  the  alien  religions  with  which  it  fought.  Their  influ- 
ence is  apparent  in  the  most  varied  fields,  but  especially  where  rites 
and  ceremonies,  sacraments,  and  popular  religious  ideas  are  con- 
cerned. In  Catholicism  a  religion  of  the  first  and  a  religion  of  the 
second  order  can  be  distinguished  as  existing  side  by  side.  If  the 
first  kind  was  to  a  considerable  degree  affected,  the  second  was  very 
strongly  determined  by  extra-Christian  superstitions.  To  investigate 
the  extent  of  this  influence  in  regard  to  each  particular  problem  is 
always,  no  doubt,  a  task  demanding  a  great  deal  of  care  and  critical 
tact.  We  are  more  inclined  in  these  days  to  overvalue  than  to  under- 
value the  influence  of  alien  religions,  and  we  are  too  ready  to  assert 
dependence  where  all  that  is  in  question  is  a  parallel  set  of  phenom- 
ena, developing  here  and  there  spontaneously.  The  abuse  of  this 
method,  however,  must  not  prevent  us  from  seeing  that  there  are 
many  important  phenomena  in  the  inner  history  of  the  church  which 
can  be  explained  only  by  taking  account  of  alien  religions;  and  that, 
when  we  are  deaUng  with  this  history,  to  look  at  it  from  the  point  of 
view  of  the  general  history  of  religions  is  a  method  that  has  already 
borne  rich  fruit  and  promises  still  more. 

But  it  is  not  enough  to  study  the  influence  of  alien  religions  on  the 
history  of  Christianity.  Nay,  we  have  seen  with  increasing  clearness 
in  the  last  few  decades  that  the  origin,  too,  of  Christianity  cannot 
be  understood  without  taking  account  of  them.  The  Christian  relig- 
ion, no  doubt,  is  the  religion  of  Jesus  Christ;  but  it  came  when 
"the  time  was  fulfilled."  The  Christian  religion,  then,  is  the  Jewish 
religion  fulfilled,  that  is  to  say,  brought  to  a  completion  and  trans- 
figured. But  the  Jewish  religion  in  Jesus'  time  was  not  a  simple 
affair;  on  the  contrary,  through  the  labors  of  the  prophets  and  the 
influence  of  other  religions  it  had  become  a  spiritualized  but  also  a 
highly  complex  fabric.  In  the  breadth  of  its  development  it  was 
a  syncretistic  religion,  but  even  on  its  inner  side  it  was  deepened  and 
enriched  by  extra- Jewish  elements.  In  the  course  of  its  transform- 
ation into  Christianity  it  did  not  lose  these  component  parts  of  its 
nature.  That  is  why  we  must  go  back  to  Babylon  and  Assyria,  to 
Egypt  and  Persia,  to  discover  the  origin  of  important  elements  in 
Christianity.  We  are  doing  this  to-day,  but  in  doing  it  we  too  often 
overlook  the  more  serious  and  difficult  business  of  studying  the 
changes  in  meaning  which  the  received  elements  underw^ent.  Merely 
to  state  that  they  exist,  and  to  say  whence  they  come,  carries  us 
a  very  little  way.  Nay,  we  shall  become  involved  in  huge  misunder- 


628  HISTORY  OF   THE  CHRISTIAN  CHURCH 

standings  and  confusions  if  we  do  not  attend  to  the  place  which  the 
old  material  held  and  the  new  meaning  which  it  received  in  the 
Christian  Church  from  the  very  beginning.  It  is  no  doubt  true  that 
the  seven  great  Angels  came  from  Babylon,  the  Devil  from  Persia, 
the  Logos  from  Greece.  But  in  the  gospel  and  the  apostolic  writings 
the  Devil  means  something  different  from  Ahriman,  and  the  Logos  of 
John  and  Ignatius  is  not  the  Logos  of  Philo.  We  can  only  desire  with 
all  our  hearts  that  not  only  in  regard  to  the  Old  Testament,  but  also 
in  regard  to  the  New,  the  investigation  of  religious  history  shall  go 
on;  but  we  must  just  as  earnestly  insist  that  in  this  process  the  great 
changes  in  the  meaning  of  ideas  and  conceptions  shall  be  clearly 
kept  in  view.  Even  where  the  dependence  of  Christian  ideas  and 
practices  on  pagan  is  particularly  evident  —  I  mean  in  the  case  of  the 
sacraments  —  we  must  not  be  content  with  merely  pointing  out  this 
dependence;  for  the  Christian  doctrine  of  the  sacraments  has  char- 
acteristic featul-es  of  its  own;  as  is  proved,  for  example,  by  Justin 
Martyr's  account  of  baptism. 

There  is  another  reason,  too,  why  we  must  study  the  history  of 
religion  in  general.  We  must  study  it  not  only  because  the  history  of 
the  church  in  nearly  all  its  stages  has  acted  on  other  religions  and 
been  itself  affected  by  them,  but  also  because  a  complete  understand- 
ing of  one  religion  cannot  possibly  be  obtained  without  a  knowledge 
of  others.  It  is  true  that  the  historian  of  the  Christian  Church  is  here 
at  an  advantage  compared  with  the  historian  of  any  other  religion; 
for  Christianity  —  together  with  its  precursor,  Judaism  —  is,  in  space 
and  time,  content  and  development,  something  so  universal  that 
almost  all  conceivable  religious  phenomena  are  to  be  found  in  its 
history.  Nevertheless  we  cannot  hope  to  obtain  a  definitive  know- 
ledge of  Christianity  unless  we  compare  it  with  other  religions.  We 
run  too  great  a  risk  of  taking  what  is  important  for  what  is  unim- 
portant, what  is  primary  for  what  is  secondary,  and  vice  versd,  if  we 
do  not  compare  —  so  far  as  comparisons  are  at  all  possible.  Here, 
too,  the  words  of  the  poet  apply: 

Ehe  es  sich  riindet  in  einem  Kreis 
1st  kein  Wissen  vorhanden; 
Ehe  nicht  Einer  Alles  weiss 
1st  die  Welt  nicht  verstanden. 

I  do  not,  of  course,  mean  that  our  Faculties  of  Christian  Theology 
should  be  turned  into  Faculties  of  the  General  History  of  Religion  — 
we  are  not  here  concerned  with  any  merely  academic  question  —  but 
still  I  am  quite  sure  that  the  student  must  not  separate  the  history  of 
Christianity  from  this  wider  history,  and  that  the  progress  of  know- 
ledge depends  on  observing  the  connection  of  both. 


ECCLESIASTICAL  AND   GENERAL  HISTORY        629 

III 

The  history  of  religion  in  general  leads  us  to  the  psychology  of 
religion,  and  here  we  have  a  fresh  means  of  understanding  the  facts 
of  ecclesiastical  history.  It  is  only  in  the  last  ten  years  that  we  have 
begun  to  bring  religious  psychology  and  the  comparative  history  of 
religion  into  connection  with  each  other,  and  we  have  thereby  ob- 
tained some  very  valuable  results  already.  Let  me  specially  mention 
the  labors  of  William  James.  They  have  shown  us  that  to  study  the 
history  of  the  Christian  religion  on  its  dogmatic  side  alone  is  not 
enough,  and  that  together  with  and  previous  to  this  study  we  can  and 
must  pay  attention  to  the  fundamental  manifestations  of  religion 
themselves.  In  this  way  the  independent  character  of  the  religious 
life  has  been  more  vividly  brought  to  mind,  and  we  have  been  able 
to  get  a  better  view  of  the  question  as  to  what  is  morbid  and  what  is 
healthy  in  religion,  what  is  eccentric  and  what  is  central. 

Still,  these  investigations  are  more  applicable  to  the  religions  before 
Christianity  than  to  Christianity  itself;  for,  owing  to  the  close  con- 
nection between  religion  and  ethics  which  Christianity  exhibits,  all 
manifestations  of  religion  that  are  devoid  of  an  ethical  meaning  lose 
their  force.  They  seem  to  us  only  just  tolerable  but  not  characteristic 
or  normal  expressions  of  religion.  Then  again,  the  clear  and  certain 
character  of  the  Christian  idea  of  God  leaves  no  room  for  a  state  of 
religious  emotion  based  on  the  feeling  that  the  Deity  is  a  dark  and 
overwhelming  force.  Christian  piety,  as  the  apostle  Paul  says,  is  a 
"reasonable  service,"  and  therefore  it  stands  nearer  to  the  highest 
qualities  and  activities  of  the  mind  than  to  the  lower. 

To  philosophy,  too,  therefore,  and  to  knowledge  generally  it  stands 
in  close  relation.  This  was  noticed  even  in  the  earliest  ages.  The 
Christian  apologists  of  the  second  century  explained  Greek  philo- 
sophy as  due  to  the  same  spirit  of  which  the  full  revelation  was 
exhibited  in  Jesus  Christ;  and  Clement  of  Alexandria  regarded  it, 
equally  with  the  Old  Testament,  as  a  preliminary  stage  of  the  Christ- 
ian religion.  The  development  of  dogma  in  the  primitive  church 
stood  under  the  influence  of  Greek  philosophy,  more  especially  of 
Platonism;  and  in  the  Middle  Ages  Aristotle  helped  to  build  up  the 
church's  intellectual  system.  In  modem  times  the  philosophy  of 
Leibnitz,  Kant,  Hegel,  and  Schelling  has  had  its  effect  on  Protestant 
dogmatics;  and  in  our  own  day  theology  has  been  strongly  influ- 
enced by  the  modem  theory  of  knowledge  and  by  psychology  gener- 
ally, as  well  as  by  the  theory  of  development. 

This  is  all  so  evident  and  so  notorious  that  there  is  no  need  to 
expatiate  on  the  fact  that  without  a  knowledge  of  the  history  of 
philosophy  we  cannot  study  the  history  of  the  church.  But  Hegel 
and  his  followers  ask  us  to  take  a  step  further:  Christian  doctrine  and 


630  HISTORY  OF  THE  CHRISTIAN   CHURCH 

philosophy,  they  say,  are  not  only  intertwined  with  each  other,  are 
not  only  akin  to  each  other,  but  are  in  the  last  resort  identical.  The 
considerations  leading  to  this  hypothesis  are  as  follows:  Religion 
exhibits  the  relation  between  man  and  the  Absolute,  and  a  knowledge 
of  the  Absolute  is  that  to  which  our  intellectual  efforts  are  directed. 
In  the  lower  stages  of  religion,  however,  this  relation  is  at  best  only 
felt;  and  hence  these  stages  are  incomplete,  particularistic,  and 
incumbered  with  alien  matter.  As  development  progresses  they 
become  more  and  more  pure  and  spiritual,  until  they  reach  their 
culminating  point  in  Christianity.  God  is  then  revealed  and  recog- 
nized as  the  absolute  and  immanent  Spirit.  According  to  this  view, 
the  history  of  the  formation  and  development  of  Christian  dogma  is 
the  real  history  of  the  Christian  religion;  and  the  most  important 
elements,  too,  in  dogma  are  the  speculative  assertions,  especially  those 
on  the  nature  of  the  Trinity  and  on  Christology;  for  in  them  the  pure, 
pantheistic  knowledge  of  God  comes  to  expression,  in  part  clearly  and 
plainly,  in  part  only  lightly  veiled.  In  this  way  the  history  of  philo- 
sophy and  the  history  of  higher,  especially  of  the  Christian,  religion, 
are,  rightly  understood,  identical;  nay,  in  their  identity  we  get  not 
only  the  true  history  of  the  human  spirit  but  also  the  history  of  God 
Himself:  in  this  history  the  Absolute  Spirit  "has  come  to  itself." 

This  magnificent  conception  of  the  history  of  the  church  is  not, 
indeed,  without  some  value;  but,  for  all  that,  it  cannot  be  accepted. 
That  the  knowledge  of  God  as  the  Absolute  Spirit  forms  a  main 
element  in  the  Christian  religion  is  true.  On  the  other  hand,  since 
the  aim  of  philosophy  is  to  get  at  the  ultimate  reasons  for  everything, 
and  these  are  not  to  be  found  in  anything  material,  an  elective  affinity 
is  thereby  established  between  philosophy  and  spiritual  religion. 
Moreover,  the  higher  forms  of  religion  have  at  all  times  made  use  of 
philosophical  thought  in  order  to  justify  the  idea  of  God  and  give  it 
a  fuller  development;  and,  conversely,  philosophy  has  taken  account 
of  the  ideas  expressive  of  religious  and  more  particularly  of  Christian 
faith.  But  these  circumstances  must  not  blind  us  to  the  fact  that 
religion  and  a  philosophical  theory  of  the  world,  so  long  as  the  latter 
keeps  to  its  own  ground,  are  two  different  things.  Religion  is  a  definite 
state  of  feeling  and  will,  basing  itself  on  inner  experience  and  on 
historical  facts.  This  it  remains  even  in  its  higher  stages;  and  hence 
the  intellectual  element  in  it,  although  an  absolutely  necessary  ele- 
ment, always  takes  the  second  place.  Again,  religion  is  never  "dis- 
interested," as  any  theory  must  be;  on  the  contrary,  it  has  to  do 
with  hopes  and  aspirations ;  nay,  we  may  even  say  that  religion  is  the 
instinct  of  self-preservation  in  a  higher  form  —  an  instinct,  however, 
which  in  the  Christian  religion  is  not  concerned  with  the  empirical 
Ego  and  with  earthly  life,  but  with  the  inmost  core  of  this  Ego, 
which  in  another  world,  the  world  of  Freedom  and  the  Good,  sees  its 


ECCLESIASTICAL  AND  GENERAL   HISTORY        631 

true  home.  Philosophy  cannot  and  may  not  know  anything  of  all  this, 
except  in  so  far  as  it  calls  religion  to  its  aid  when  it  attempts  to  study 
the  philosophy  of  religion.  For  without  religion  philosophy  remains 
bound  down  to  the  five  senses  and  the  whole  apparatus  of  psychology 
and  logic,  which  everywhere  carry  it  back  to  at  least  two  fundamental 
factors  and  one  uniform  process.  In  religion,  on  the  other  hand,  it  is 
one  fundamental  factor  and  two  processes  which  we  are  led  to  accept. 
The  obscurities  to  which  this  state  of  things  sometimes  give  rise; 
the  "belief"  of  philosophy  in  the  unity  of  the  fundamental  factor  and 
the  half-belief  of  the  theologians  in  the  God  of  religion,  have  produced 
endless  confusion  in  the  course  of  history,  and  brought  about  the 
erroneous  notion  that  the  results  of  pure  knowledge  and  of  religion 
are  essentially  akin  to  each  other  or  even  identical.  No!  they  are 
different;  they  are  two  parallel  lines  which  —  religious  philosophy 
apart,  which  is  not  pure  philosophy  —  are  connected  only,  as  it  were, 
by  the  bridge  of  certain  analogies,  or  by  the  flights  of  fancy  which 
merge  their  different  fields  into  one  in  order  to  give  them  life. 

However  —  be  the  distance  between  them  what  it  may  —  in  the 
actual  history  of  things  they  are  very  closely  bound  up  -^dth  each 
other.  They  have  done  each  other  great  service,  and  together  they 
represent  the  higher  life  of  humanity.  How  much  does  religion, 
even  the  Christian  religion,  owe  to  the  progressive  achievements  of 
philosophy  and  the  various  forms  of  knowledge!  How  much  they 
have  done  to  purify  it,  to  clear  it  of  false  ideas,  and  to  free  it  from 
impossible  pretensions!  Religion,  no  doubt,  is  very  tenacious  in 
clinging  to  old  prejudices,  and  the  history  of  the  relation  between 
philosophy  and  religion  is  also  the  history  of  a  struggle.  Andrew 
White  has  described  it  for  us.  Religion  seems  always  to  have  had  to 
surrender;  but  it  only  seems.  All  that  it  did  was  to  abandon  out- 
works that  were  no  longer  of  any  use  to  it.  It  shed  the  leaves  in 
which  there  was  no  more  life.  On  the  other  hand,  in  none  of  the 
intellectual  systems  that  have  prevailed  from  time  to  time  has  the 
human  mind  ever  spoken  its  last  word,  and  nearly  all  of  them  have 
borrowed  something  from  religion.  The  human  mind  has  had  to  take 
these  systems  back  again  and  again,  and  put  others  in  their  place. 
The  more  closely  and  attentively  the  ecclesiastical  historian  examines 
this  struggle  of  the  mind  in  itself  and  in  its  relation  to  religion,  the 
deeper  he  will  go,  and  the  more  indispensable  he  will  make  the  study 
of  his  subject  to  the  science  of  history  as  a  whole. 

IV 

We  said  just  now  that  the  human  mind  has  never  spoken  its  last 
word  in  any  of  the  intellectual  systems  that  have  prevailed  from  time 
to  time.    Is  that  true?    Have  we  not,  perhaps,  its  last  word  in  the 


632  HISTORY  OF  THE  CHRISTIAN  CHURCH 

theory  which  tells  us  that  it  is  economic  conditions  —  I  mean  food, 
the  supply  of  food,  and  the  place  where  it  can  be  obtained  —  which 
ultimately  determine  all  intellectual  life  and  all  higher  development, 
including  that  of  religion?  I  must  not  try  within  the  limits  of  this 
lecture  to  explain  my  reasons  for  declining  to  accept  such  a  theory. 
I  may  say,  however,  that  it  seems  to  me  to  be  refuted  by  the  mere 
fact  that  the  most  material  element  acting  upon  man  always  produces 
feelings  and  ideas  which  themselves  act  as  forces  in  their  turn,  and 
stand  in  no  simple  proportionate  relation  to  their  material  causes. 
Moreover,  as  long  as  men  continue  to  sacrifice  their  possessions,  their 
blood,  and  their  life,  for  ideal  aims,  it  will  be  impossible  for  any  one 
to  maintain  the  materialistic  view  of  history  except  with  the  help  of 
sophisms. 

But  although  we  decline  to  explain  everything  that  happens  by 
the  play  of  economic  conditions,  we  may  still  gratefully  acknowledge 
that  this  latest,  the  economic,  view  of  history  has  shed  and  will  con- 
tinue to  shed  a  great  deal  of  light  on  the  history  of  the  church.  Let 
me  show  what  I  mean  by  a  few  examples.  The  great  extension  of 
Christianity  in  the  early  centuries  cannot  be  explained  without 
keeping  the  social  and  economic  views  and  practices  of  the  Christian 
communities  in  view.  Every  one  of  these  communities  not  only  tried 
to  relieve  the  poor,  to  provide  for  widows  and  orphans,  the  sick,  the 
weak,  those  who  were  out  of  work  or  persecuted,  etc.,  but  it  was  also 
a  regular  association  for  mutual  help.  By  the  union  of  all  these  com- 
munities in  the  Empire  into  a  firm  alliance  with  one  another  a  social 
organism  arose  which  could  not  fail  to  attract,  in  the  highest  degree, 
the  economically  unfortunate.  That  this  is  really  what  happened  is 
shown  by  pagan  writers  themselves.  It  was  shown,  for  instance,  by 
Lucian  in  his  Peregrirms  Proteus. 

But  not  only  did  the  church  step  in  where  social  relations  were 
concerned ;  its  thoughts  and  ideas  were  also  determined  by  its  attitude 
in  questions  of  economics.  The  distrust  which  the  church  shows 
toward  wealth  and  capital  is  in  part  to  be  explained  by  the  poverty 
of  the  early  communities;  and  here,  too,  its  theories  about  earthly 
possessions  have  one  of  their  roots.  When  it  afterwards  came  to 
number  both  rich  and  poor  in  its  ranks,  it  retained  that  distrust. 
This  had  a  very  paradoxical  result:  The  dangers  of  wealth,  it  was 
said,  exist  only  for  the  individual  Christian;  they  do  not  exist  for 
the  church,  which  is  preserved  from  them  by  its  sacred  character. 
There  is  no  harm,  then,  in  the  church  becoming  rich.  Rich,  accord- 
ingly, it  became.  Part  of  its  wealth  was  due  to  the  fact  that  in  the 
dark  days  of  inner  and  outer  convulsion  a  man's  possessions  and  his 
capital  were  still  safest  under  its  protection.  Hence  men  often 
handed  over  their  property  to  the  church,  not  only  in  order  to  save 
their  souls,  but  also  to  secure  themselves  from  high-handed  acts  or 


ECCLESIASTICAL  AND  GENERAL  HISTORY        633 

sheer  robbery.  The  church  entered  on  the  Middle  Ages  as  a  great 
and  wealthy  and  therefore  aristocratic  power;  and  the  immense 
struggles  between  Emperor  and  Pope,  Princes  and  Bishops,  were  all 
in  the  last  resort  struggles  for  wealth  and  dominion. 

The  whole  history  of  the  church  in  the  Middle  Ages  may  there- 
fore, nay  must,  be  studied  from  the  economic  point  of  view.  This  is 
very  evident  even  in  the  history  of  monasticism.  Up  to  the  time  v\  hen 
the  orders  of  mendicant  friars  arose,  the  development  of  Western 
monasticism  has  a  place  in  the  history  of  the  large  landed  estate. 
An  abbey  would  sometimes  form  the  centre  of  such  an  estate,  and 
the  abbot  nolens  volens  had  to  provide  for  his  monastery  before  he 
provided  for  the  spiritual  welfare  of  his  monks.  But  even  the  move- 
ment which  produced  the  mendicant  friars  very  quickly  became 
in  its  turn  part  and  parcel  of  an  economic  movement,  although  of 
a  different  kind.  Light  may  also  be  shed  on  the  development  of  the 
Papacy  from  the  same  source,  for  one  of  the  conditions  of  its  becoming 
a  sovereign  power  was  the  possession  of  landed  property.  In  the 
struggle  about  the  investiture  of  the  bishops  the  questions  at  issue 
were  concerned  just  as  much  with  property  as  with  dominion;  and 
as  a  European  power  whose  possessions  were  not  on  a  par  with  its 
position,  the  Papacy  was  especially  affected  by  the  economic  upheaval 
which  took  place  in  the  fourteenth  and  fifteenth  centuries.  If  it  was 
to  survive,  ready  money  had  to  be  collected  from  all  sides.  To  get 
money  it  had  to  raise  its  spiritual  pretensions  in  every  direction,  and 
make  them  into  fresh  rights;  nay,  more,  it  had  to  multiply  the  means 
of  grace  which  the  church  offered,  and  exploit  them  as  financial 
resources.  Just  because  it  was  a  financial  power,  however,  the  Papacy 
now  began  to  excite  distrust  and  dislike,  and  this  it  was  that  paved 
the  way  for  the  reforming  movements.  We  can  thus  see  how  greatly 
religious  theories  and  ecclesiastical  arrangements  were  dependent 
on  this  development.  Of  the  new  sacramental  observances,  of  the 
multitudinous  rites  and  ceremonies,  and  of  the  fresh  dogmas  framed 
upon  them,  a  large  number  had  their  origin  in  economic  and  financial 
necessities. 

In  this  respect  the  upheaval  which  the  Reformation  denoted  did 
not  involve  any  radical  change.  Here,  too,  economic  and  social  con- 
ditions played  a  great  part.  That  the  Reformation  got  the  upper 
hand  among  a  portion  of  the  German  people  was  due,  first  and  fore- 
most, to  the  princes,  who  aimed  at  creating  territorial  churches  for 
themselves  and  being  masters  in  their  own  house.  In  this  connection, 
however,  we  must  not  forget  that  in  the  larger  towns  and  in  the 
country  districts  the  Reformation  assisted  the  class  consciousness  of 
certain  aspiring  orders  in  the  community,  and  that,  on  the  other  hand, 
the  knights  of  the  Empire,  who  were  in  a  bad  way  economically, 
attempted  by  its  means  to  regain  their  previous  position.  But  it  is  in 


634  HISTORY  OF  THE  CHRISTIAN  CHURCH 

France  and,  above  all,  in  England,  that  the  close  connection  between 
the  Reformation  and  social  and  economic  conditions  is  particularly 
plain.  Even  after  England  had  shaken  off  the  Papacy  it  was  social 
and  economic  conditions  which  determined  religious  parties  and 
struggles:  the  King  and  the  aristocracy  held  to  the  church  of  the 
Thirty-nine  Articles;  the  higher  middle  classes  were  Presbyterian; 
the  aspiring  lower  middle  classes  were  Puritan  and  rallied  to  Crom- 
well's flag.  When  we  look,  too,  at  the  way  in  which,  both  there  and 
in  Protestant  Germany,  the  character  and  aims  of  the  church  were 
then  settled  by  the  theologians,  it  is  plain  that  side  by  side  with 
political  conditions  the  theories  adopted  were  strongly  acted  on  by 
social  influences  as  well.  These  influences  extend  even  to  dogmatics 
and  ethics  (the  "divinely  appointed"  orders),  and  to  show  that  in 
detail  is  one  of  the  tasks  of  the  future.  We  must  never  allow  ourselves 
to  forget,  however,  that  behind  the  economic  factors  there  are  always 
the  political,  and  that  it  is  these  that  really  turn  the  scale.  In  power 
and  effect  they  outweigh  all  other  factors,  so  far  as  externals  are 
concerned. 

That  the  history  of  the  church  is  most  closely  bound  up  and  inter- 
woven with  all  the  great  branches  of  general  history,  is  what  I  have 
tried  to  show.  In  recognizing  this  fact,  and  in  shaping  our  study 
accordingly,  there  may  possibly  be  some  risk  of  our  losing  sight  of  or 
undervaluing  the  special  character  which  attaches  to  the  history  of 
the  church.  We  shall  guard  ourselves  against  any  such  danger  if  we 
always  bear  in  mind  that  all  our  labors  in  this  sphere  ought  to  help 
us  to  throw  light  on  the  question,  What  is  the  Christian  religion? 
This  must  ever  remain  the  guiding-star  of  our  researches,  however 
wide  the  range  which  they  will  have  to  take.  If  ecclesiastical  history 
loses  sight  of  that  guiding-star,  it  wnll  also  lose  the  right  to  form  a 
special  subject  of  study  within  the  science  of  history.  If  it  follows 
that  star,  then  what  is  characteristic  of  every  independent  subject  of 
knowledge  will  also  hold  good  of  it  —  that  it  unveils  itself  only  to 
the  man  who  devotes  himself  entirely  to  it.  Grimm  once  made  the 
fine  observation  that  knowledge  has  no  secrets,  though  it  has  its 
secrecies;  it  has  no  Gehdmnisse,  but  it  has  Heimlichkeiten.  The 
history  of  the  church  also  has  its  Heimlichkeiten.  The  man  who  is 
half-hearted  in  his  efforts  about  it  will  see  nothing;  it  is  only  when 
he  woos  it  with  the  loyalty  of  a  Jacob  that  he  will  win  the  bride. 

In  the  history  of  the  church,  however,  these  Heimlichkeiten  go 
very  deep  and  are  very  precious.  We  have  seen  that  there  is  no  such 
thing  as  a  double  history,  and  that  everything  that  happens  enters 
into  the  one  stream  of  events.  But  there  is  a  single  inner  experience 
which  every  one  can  possess;  which  to  every  one  who  possesses  it  is 
like  a  miracle;  and  which  cannot  be  simply  explained  as  the  product 


ECCLESIASTICAL  AND   GENERAL   HISTORY        635 

of  something  else.  It  is  what  the  Christian  reUgion  describes  as  the 
New  Birth  —  that  inner,  moral,  new  creation  which  transmutes  all 
values,  and  of  the  slaves  of  compulsion  makes  the  children  of  freedom. 
Not  even  in  the  history  of  the  church  can  any  one  get  a  direct  vision 
of  this  inner  evolution  accomplished  in  the  individual,  nor  by  any 
external  facts  whatever  can  any  one  be  convinced  of  its  possibility  and 
reality.  But  the  light  which  shines  from  it  throws  its  rays  on  what 
happens  on  the  stage,  and  lets  the  spectator  feel  in  his  heart  that  the 
forces  of  history  are  not  exhausted  in  the  natural  forces  of  the  world, 
or  in  the  pow^ers  of  head  and  hand.  This  is  the  Heimlichkeit  of  the 
history  of  the  church  because  it  is  the  Heimlichkeit  of  religion. 


PROGRESS  OF  ECCLESIASTICAL   HISTORY,  ESPECIALLY 
ANCIENT,  DURING  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY 

BY   JEAN   REVILLE 

[Jean  Reville,  Professor  of  History  of  Christian  Literature,  University  of  Paris; 
Directeur  d'Etudes  in  Church  History  at  I'Ecole  des  Hautes  Etudes,  Paris; 
Directeur  Revue  de  I'Histoire  des  Religions,  b.  1854,  Rotterdam,  Netherlands, 
of  French  parentage.  D.D.  University  of  Paris,  1886.  ^Minister,  Lutheran 
Church  at  Sainte  Suzanne,  1880-83;  Chaplain,  Reformed  Church,  Lvc^e 
Henri  IV,  Paris,  1886-94;  Maitre  de  conference,  1886;  Directeur  d'Etudes, 
1903,  k  I'Ecole  des  Hautes  Etudes;  Secretaire  de  la  Section  des  Sciences  re- 
ligieuses  de  I'Ecole  des  Hautes  Etudes  since  1886.  Author  of  many  books  in 
French  on  religious  subjects;  Le  ■protestantisme  liberal;  La  Religion  a  Rome 
sous  les  Severes,  etc.,  some  of  which  have  been  translated  into  German,  the 
first  one  also  into  EngUsh.] 

Ladies  and  Gentlemen,  —  In  this  paper  I  have  to  condense  the 
progress  of  ecclesiastical  history  during  the  nineteenth  century 
and  to  describe  its  present  state.  Ecclesiastical  history,  that  is,  the 
history  of  the  Christian  Church  in  all  its  forms  and  of  the  Christian 
religion  in  all  its  varieties,  is  a  very  extensive  science,  including  the 
whole  religious  and  moral  history  of  the  Christian  world.  And  that 
history  itself  is  intimately  joined  to  the  whole  of  the  spiritual  life 
as  well  as  to  the  political,  social,  and  economical  evolutions  of  the 
different  Christian  peoples.  It  is  not  in  a  few  minutes  that  one  can 
draw  up  an  inventory  of  such  an  immense  field.*  My  aim  is  only  to 
put  down  some  guiding-marks,  which  may  be  fit  to  point  out  the 
progressive  course  of  this  history,  especially  in  the  field  of  ancient 
Christianity,  and  to  show  the  present  direction  of  our  studies. 

Ecclesiastical  history  is  born  out  of  the  Renaissance  and  the 
Reformation.^  In  the  Middle  Ages  there  were  chroniclers,  not  properly 
historians.  The  Reformation,  while  claiming  to  be  a  restitution  of 
pure  primitive  Christian  doctrines  and  institutions  which  had  been 
spoiled  and  corrupted  by  the  Roman  Church,  was  obliged  to  justify 
such  a  pretension  by  historical  proofs.^  The  Catholics,  at  the  other 
side,  endeavored  to  refute  the  historical  arguments  of  the  Protest- 
ants.* Ecclesiastical  history,  thus  from  the  very  outset  subdued  to 
church  controversy,  took  first  a  confessional  character.  But  the 
passion  of  the  contest  and  the  importance  of  the  cause  imparted 

*  Amongst  the  conditions  imparted  to  European  official  speakers  the  second 
was:  "The  time  to  be  occupied  in  the  delivery  of  an  address  shall  be,  as  nearly 
as  practicable,  forty-five  mmutes." 

'  We  are  speaking  here  of  ecclesiastical  history  in  modem  Christianity.  Ancient 
Christianity  has  had  a  first-rate  historian,  Eusebius  from  Cesarea,  and  others, 
who  left  useful  writings,  although  not  equal  by  far  to  his.  But  we  may  say, 
without  doing  harm  to  them,  that  none  of  them  had  the  sense  of  history  as 
we  understand  it  now  in  modem  times. 

'  For  instance,  Flaccius  and  the  Centuriae  Magdeburgenses. 

*  See  Baronius  and  his  followers. 


PROGRESS  OF   ECCLESIASTICAL   HISTORY         637 

to  the  scholars  a  life  and  an  ardor,  which  they  would  never  have 
exerted  without  this  continuous  stimulation,  and  so  ecclesiastical 
history  got  the  start  of  all  other  sections  of  historical  science.^ 

After  all,  with  many  of  them  the  blessing  which  results  from 
conscientious  researches  of  the  truth  prevailed  over  care  of  con- 
fessional apologetic.  One  cannot  praise  sufficiently  the  admirable 
works  of  the  monastic  scholars  and  of  the  masters  of  Protestant 
high  schools  in  France  and  in  the  Netherlands  during  the  seventeenth 
and  the  first  half  of  the  eighteenth  century.  ^  They  have  strongly 
built  the  layers  upon  which  the  scholars  of  the  nineteenth  century 
have  erected  the  edifice  under  which  we  take  shelter.  In  a  solemn 
occasion  as  this  one  we  ought  to  pay  homage  to  the  forefathers,  who 
have  founded  the  greatness  of  our  house. 

The  result  of  the  intense  controversy  between  Catholic  and 
Protestant  scholarship  was  quite  different  from  what  the  opponents 
looked  for.  It  had  illustrated  the  errors  on  both  sides,  the  prejudices 
and  the  party  spirit  of  both.  Unconfessional  critique  availed  itself  of 
this  experience.  Rationalistic  history  arose,  especially  in  Protestant 
countries,  in  England  and  Germany.  In  France  the  source  of  religious 
scholarship  was  exhausted  by  the  persecution  of  the  Protestants  and 
of  the  Jansenists,  by  the  gradual  weakening  of  the  Gallican  Church.' 
French  philosophy  in  the  eighteenth  century  disdained  to  study  the 
past  of  a  religion  or  of  a  church  which  were  considered  as  duly  con- 
victed of  error  and  imposture,  and  the  Roman  Church  did  not  care 
for  researches  which  seemed  to  be  dangerous  for  her.  Since,  and 
till  the  pontificate  of  Leo  XIII,  Catholic  countries  did  not  contribute 
any  more  to  the  progress  of  ecclesiastical  history  otherwise  than  on 
secondary  questions  of  archaeological  nature  or  of  local  history,  or 
by  the  work  of  some  freethinkers  and  some  Protestant  countrymen. 

*  Historical  criticism  is  really  bom  out  of  ecclesiastical  history.  From  there 
it  extended  into  what  is  called  "profane"  history. 

'  So  we  may  mention:  among  the  Jesuits,  Sirmond,  Fronton  du  Due,  Petau, 
Labbe,  the  first  Bollandists;  among  the  friars  of  the  Oratoire,  Jean  Morin, 
Le  Cointe,  Thomassin,  Richard  Simon;  amongst  the  Benedictines  of  St.  Maur, 
Mabillon,  d'Ach^ry,  Mart^ne,  Durand,  Montfaucon,  Ruinart,  etc.;  among  the 
men  of  Port-Royal,  Le  Nain  de  Tillemont;  the  authors  of  the  Gallia  Chris- 
tiana; further  on,  EUe  Du  Pin,  d'Herbelot,  Baluze,  etc.  And  among  the 
masters  of  the  Protestant  reformed  academies:  G.  Vossius,  Fr.  Spanheim, 
Vitringa,  Hottinger  (in  Switzerland),  Louis  Cappel,  D.  Blondel,  Jean  Daill6, 
Basnage,  I^eclerc,  de  Beausobre,  Samuel  Bochart,  etc.  We  must  mention  also 
in  England:  John  Pearson  and  Usher.  In  Germany  the  only  scholar,  who 
at  the  end  of  the  seventeenth  century  has  some  qualifications  of  an  historian, 
is  Arnold.  He  was  one  of  the  first  who  were  able  to  apjfreciate  the  historical 
value  of  heretics. 

^  Among  the  Protestants  Pierre  Bayle,  and  among  the  Catholics  Huet,  Bishop 
of  Avranches,  are  at  the  beginning  of  the  eighteenth  century  the  last  represent- 
atives of  scholarly  trained  ecclesiastical  historians  (with  some  Benedictine  friars, 
who  continued,  though  with  less  profit,  the  work  of  their  predecessors).  Bayle 
and  Huet  are  both  anti-dogmatic  writers,  but  with  the  second  skepticism  tends 
to  submit  reason  to  the  authority  of  the  chiu-ch;  with  the  first,  on  the  contrary, 
skepticism  inspires  toleration  and  free  criticism.  Bayle,  who  died  in  1706,  is  for 
a  good  deal  a  forerunner. 


638  HISTORY  OF  THE  CHRISTIAN   CHURCH 

Rationalistic  ecclesiastical  history,  though  claiming  to  be  inde- 
pendent of  dogmatic  prejudices,  nevertheless  obeyed  some  doctrinal 
ideas.  One  while,  especially  in  England,  it  aimed  chiefly  to  identify 
true  Christian  religion  with  natural  religion,  and  to  denounce,  as 
sacerdotal  and  theological  adulterations,  fortuitous  or  voluntary, 
all  doctrines  or  institutions  of  the  churches  which  did  not  agree  with 
that  so-called  natural  religion,  that  is,  with  their  own  religious 
philosophy.^  Another  while,  especially  in  Germany,  it  endeavored 
to  show,  not  only  that  all  things  in  the  history  of  the  church  must 
be  explained  in  a  way  satisfactory  for  reason,  —  which  is  indeed 
a  postulate  of  scientific  history,  —  but  still  more,  that  all  teachings 
of  true  Christianity,  supernatural  as  well  as  natural,  were  perfectly 
reasonable.^ 

Rationalistic  historians  of  the  eighteenth  century  have  done  a  very 
useful  work  of  clearing  away.  Their  criticism  was  short-sighted;  they 
do  not  go  to  the  bottom;  the  proper  sense  of  religion  is  not  very 
sound  in  their  works  and  their  philosophy  of  history  is  very  poor. 
However,  they  dealt  a  blow  to  the  traditional  dogmatic  conception  of 
ecclesiastical  history,  after  which  it  could  not  rise  again  on  scientific 
ground.  Their  work  will  be  taken  up  later  on  by  men  of  a  freer  spirit 
and  of  a  less  vulgar  common  sense,  like  Schrockh,  Standlin,  Spittlef , 
Planck,  and  later  on  still,  by  Gieseler  and  Hase,  whose  sense  of  re- 
ligion and  feeling  of  historical  continuance  fired  the  scholarship, 
whilst  their  respect  for  the  texts  and  the  documents  secured  the 
soundness  of  their  work. 

But  let  us  not  anticipate.  Between  the  rationalistic  historians  of 
the  eighteenth  century  and  those  famous  masters  of  ecclesiastical 
history  in  the  nineteenth  century,  the  spiritual  world  had  been 
renovated  by  a  great  and  teeming  revolution  of  idealist  philosophy. 
Ecclesiastical  history,  indeed,  like  every  science  of  information, 
excludes  all  party  and  dogmatic  or  philosophical  prejudice.  Its  sole 
allowable  aim  must  be  to  reconstitute  men  and  facts  of  the  past 
in  their  objective  reality  and  to  teacL  how  events  proceed  the  one 
from  the  other.  But  experience  makes  out  that  historical  investi- 
gations must  be  led  by  certain  principles  to  be  productive,  and  it  is 
philosophy  which  inspires  those  principles.  After  all,  we  observe 
that  in  our  studies  we  are  indebted  for  all  progresses  to  certain 

*  So,  for  instance,  in  the  works  of  Lord  Herbert  of  Cherbury  and  Lord  Shaftes- 
bury, of  Matthew  Tuidal,  Toland,  CJollins,  and  of  the  historians  of  Locke's  school. 
Hume's  skepticism  had  most  fatal  consequences  for  rationalism  and  favored  a  re- 
vival of  authoritative  faith  for  practical  use. 

*  See  the  works  of  Semler,  J.  A.  Emesti,  Michaelis,  Walch,  Mosheim,  etc. 
The  last  one  has  sometimes  been  called  "the  father  of  ecclesiastical  history." 
We  ought  also  to  take  into  account  the  influence  of  the  "pietism"  of  Spener's 
school.  Although  not  favorable  to  scientific  study  of  religion,  it  conduced  to  throw 
off  the  yoke  of  orthodox  intellectualism  by  urging  the  importance  of  piety  to  the 
prejudice  of  the  right  doctrine.  The  pietists  became  anxious  to  know  the  history 
of  religious  life  and  feelings,  hitherto  too  much  neglected. 


PROGRESS  OF   ECCLESIASTICAL   HISTORY         639 

regulating  ideas,  which  are  directing  the  activity  of  our  mind.  Con- 
jecture, which  may  be  looked  for  as  the  sounding-lead  of  science, 
springs  up  from  the  impression  made  upon  our  mind  by  the  first 
observation  of  facts;  so  the  state  of  our  mind,  that  is,  the  whole  of 
our  knowledge  and  of  our  ideas,  is  contributing  for  a  great  part  to  its 
springing  up.  Quite  as  an  engineer  or  a  geologist  cannot  seek  after 
hidden  treasuries  of  ore  in  any  country,  without  being  guided  by 
certain  principles  or  by  the  results  of  previous  inquiries,  so  the 
historian  cannot  sound  the  past  without  being  directed  by  some 
presuppositions.  To  be  guided  by  conjecture  without  being  sub- 
dued to  it,  to  be  able  to  change  it  as  soon  as  the  study  of  documents 
require,  that  is  just  the  historian's  skill. 

In  the  field  of  historical  study  it  is  not,  as  in  that  of  philosophical 
researches,  Kant  whose  influence  was  directly  quickening.  His  ab- 
stract idealism  and  his  quite  static  criticism  do  not  care  for  history. 
Like  the  leading  thinkers  of  the  French  Revolution  he  looks  only 
after  human  nature  in  itself  and  does  not  want  to  study  it  in  time 
or  space.  _  The  teeming  principles  for  ecclesiastical  history  came 
from  other  thinkers:  from  Lessing,  who  regenerated  the  old  purely 
intellectual  rationalism  by  his  esthetical  sense  of  spiritual  life's 
sound  realities  and  by  a  thoroughly  human  conception  of  religion 
and  ethics;  from  Herder,  the  poet  and  the  prophet,  the  first 
perhaps  who  possessed  that  living  sense  of  history  which  we  have  now, 
one  of  the  first  certainly  who  was  gifted  with  that  precious  ability 
of  feeling  intimately  what  other  civilizations  and  other  peoples  had 
thought  or  experienced,  instead  of  judging  them  all  by  the  measure  of 
his  own  time  and  of  his  own  spirit;  Herder,  the  generous  author, 
who  set  forth  the  organic  conception  of  history  considered  as  the 
education  of  humanity,  without  isolating  the  individual  man  from 
society  nor  humankind  from  nature;  from  Schleiermacher,  who 
acknowledged  the  specific  character  of  religion,  that  is,  the  con- 
sciousness of  the  band  which  unites  the  finite  and  the  infinite  being, 
and  who  taught  thus  theologians  to  distinguish  in  every  particular 
religion  what  is  temporary,  local,  and  special  in  it  from  what  is 
properly  and  fundamentally  religious  in  it;  and  above  all  others 
from  Hegel,  whose  philosophy  proclaimed  identity  of  the  real  and 
the  rational  and  by  his  identification  of  "sein"  and  "werden" 
assigned  to  moral  as  well  as  to  physical  science  the  no  longer  con- 
tested duty  of  recognizing  the  logical  evolution  of  things  and  beings. 
Thus  the  whole  religious  history  of  mankind  was  involved  in  the 
organic  unity  of  universal  evolution  as  the  highest  expression  of  the 
internal  dialectics  which  are  the  life  of  the  Spirit  or  the  Being. 

To  be  sure,  the  influence  of  those  great  thinkers  was  not  always 
a  good  one.  Historians,  who  drew  their  inspiration  too  exclusively 
from  one  or  the  other  of  them,  fell  victims  of  their  imagination,  of 


640  HISTORY  OF  THE  CHRISTIAN  CHURCH 

their  theology,  or  of  their  speculations.  Too  romantic  pupils  of 
Herder  or  of  Schelling  wrote  romances  instead  of  strict  and  conscien- 
tious history.  The  theologians,  who  followed  Schleiermacher,  too 
anxious  to  reconcile  their  scientific  work  with  their  ecclesiastical 
or  dogmatical  belief,  forfeited  treasuries  of  scholarship  in  sad  com- 
binations of  the  "  Vermittlungstheologie. "  ^  The  too  zealous  disciples 
of  Hegel  made  history  subordinate  to  philosophical  speculation 
and  wrote  historical  works,  which  in  spite  of  their  more  severe  form 
were,  in  the  main,  not  much  different  from  the  historical  romances. 

But  those  who  knew  how  to  derive  profit  from  such  a  strong  spirit- 
ual education,  without  giving  up  what  requires  a  severe  historical 
method,  had  a  great  influence  over  our  studies.  It  will  be  sufficient 
to  notice  that  from  Schleiermacher  proceeds  Neander,  the  historian 
who  perhap's  better  than  any  other  knew  how  to  bring  to  life  again 
some  of  the  great  Christian  personalities  of  the  past,  and  that  we 
owe  to  the  Hegelian  school  F.  Chr.  Baur  and  D.  F.  Strauss. 

Strauss's  work  has  been  chiefly  negative.  His  impressive  criticism 
overturned  the  precarious  display  of  the  midway  theologians  and 
proved  the  weakness  of  many  traditional  certainties  which  passed 
for  inexpugnable.  But  his  criticism  was  too  theoretic,  too  little 
caring  for  precise  texts  and  facts  as  to  be  able  to  produce  lasting 
positive  results. 

F.  Chr.  Baur  is  of  another  value.  With  him  begins  really  the 
modern  era  of  ecclesiastical  history.  For  once  and  for  all  he  put  in 
a  clear  light  the  principal  tendencies  whose  clash  forms  the  woof  of 
the  first  Christianity.  His  chronological  or  critical  judgments  on 
several  texts  or  documents  of  ancient  Christian  literature  may  be 
sometimes  erroneous;  the  Hegelian  dialectics  may  have  mastered 
him  more  than  it  ought;  he  may  be  too  much  an  intellectualist,  too 
anxious  for  evolution  of  the  ideas  and  not  enough  for  that  of  feelings, 
of  religious  life,  or  of  the  real  and  complicated  conditions  of  social  life. 
Nevertheless,  his  dissection  of  primitive  Christianity  —  the  antithesis 
of  the  Judsean  and  the  universalist  Hellenic  Christianity,  the  very 
importance  of  the  Gnostic  movement  (already  hinted  at  by  Neander 
indeed)  —  has  supplied  data  which  have  become  since  a  common 
good  for  us  all  and  which  are  no  longer  contested.  Before  him  none 
had  cleared  so  distinctly  the  internal  dialectics  of  the  Christian 
dogmatic  evolution  or  of  the  origins  of  the  Catholic  Church.  At  least 
he  was  one  of  the  first  ecclesiastical  historians  who  saw  so  distinctly 
how  important  it  is  to  know  other  ancient  religions  to  understand 
the  history  of  ancient  Christianity. 

Ecclesiastical  history  as  conceived  by  Baur  is  just  the  contrary 

*  Most  of  the  representatives  of  that  "  Vermittlungstheologie  "  are  dogmatists 
rather  than  historians.  Such  are:  Twesten,  Nitzsch,  Julius  Miiller,  Domer. 
More  properly  historians  are  Ullmann  and  chiefly  Alexander  Schweizer  (of  Zu- 
rich), the  most  original  of  Schleiermacher's  continuers. 


PROGRESS  OF  ECCLESIASTICAL   HISTORY         641 

of  that  which  the  rationaHstic  historians  of  the  "  pragmatic  school," 
like  Schrock  or  Planck,  wrote  before.  These  took  up  with  the  data 
of  the  historical  witnesses,  linked  the  facts  together  with  the  tend- 
encies and  the  needs  of  the  individuals  who  carried  them  out;  they 
explained  the  course  of  history  by  general  and  exterior  teleology, 
and  judged  men  or  facts  of  the  past  at  the  measure  of  their  own 
reason  and  their  own  conscience,  without  taking  into  account  the 
difference  of  time  and  country.  Neander  had  already  reacted  against 
this  quite  exterior  manner  of  writing  history.  He  did  not  attach 
much  importance  to  institutions  or  to  the  concrete  reaUties  of  social 
life,  but  tried  to  penetrate  into  the  inmost  personality  of  the  souls  and 
to  raise  up  some  great  representative  men  of  the  past  for  illustrating 
the  successive  periods  of  Christian  history.  Endowed  with  an  intense 
power  of  bountiful  and  generous  sympathy,  he  took  up  especially 
the  edifying  side  of  history.  It  was  for  him  a  school  of  Christian 
experience.  But,  if  he  has  indeed  depicted  with  a  masterful  talent 
the  history  of  some  very  best  Christians,  he  left  thus  a  series  of  por- 
traits rather  than  an  organic  history  such  as  a  scientifically  trained 
mind  requires. 

Baur,  on  the  contrary,  treats  the  history  of  Christianity  as  before 
all  the  evolution  of  ideas.  Great  individualities  are  neglected  by 
him,  or,  better,  they  are  but  representatives  of  ideas;  I  might  rather 
say,  nearly  symbolic  persons.  They  are  not  the  agents  of  history; 
they  are  themselves  the  instruments  of  the  internal  dialectics  which 
are  unfolding  through  centuries.  A  grand  and  imposing  structure, 
indeed,  and  —  let  us  say  immediately  —  not  only  a  theoretical 
work,  for  his  materials  are  elaborated  by  an  untiring  scholarship  and 
by  strong  critical  researches;  but,  after  all,  sometimes  an  artificial 
building,  where  the  intellectual  part,  the  ideas,  are  preponderating 
to  the  prejudice  of  sentiment,  piety,  and  intuition. 

Baur's  work,  however  fundamental,  wanted  thus  to  be  amended 
and  completed.  Some  of  his  pupils,  like  Ed.  Zeller  and  Weizsacker,* 
tried  to  do  so.  Others,  like  Ritschl  and  his  school,  engaged  with 
a  really  excessive  passion  in  a  reaction  against  the  too  abstract  and 
too  speculative  tendency  of  his  historical  conception.  Others  still, 
the  continuators  of  ancient  rationalism,  like  Gieseler  and  Hase,' 
although  availing  themselves  of  the  "Tiibinger  School,"  took  good 
heed  not  to  be  urged  by  speculation  and,  as  they  preserved  them- 

•  The  historians  who  proceed  directly  or  indirectly  from  the  Tiibinger  School 
are  very  numerous.  We  shall  mention  only:  Schwegler,  Kostlin,  Hilgenfeld,  H. 
Holtzmann,  Hausrath,  Holsten,  and  Pfleiderer. 

^  Ancient  rationalism  had  its  last  survivor  in  Dr.  Paulus.  But  it  had  been  re- 
newed by  Kant's  philosophy,  with  scholars  like  Bretschneider  and  Wegscheider, 
and,  imder  the  influence  of  Schleiermacher  and  of  the  philosopher  Fries,  it  had  been 
enlivened  by  de  Wette.  It  seems  inconvenient  to  speak  here  of  the  supematural- 
ist,  doctrinaire  and  intellectualist  school  of  Hengstenberg,  because  he  made  his 
scholarly  work  wholly  dependent  on  doctrine  and  ecclesiastical  tradition. 


642  HISTORY  OF  THE  CHRISTIAN  CHURCH 

selves  also  from  the  sentimentality  of  the  Schleiermacherian  school, 
they  imparted  to  their  historical  work  a  more  objective  character 
and  a  more  measured  spirit. 

Now  we  arrive  at  the  quite  modern  and  nearly  contemporary 
period  of  our  studies.  Here  our  report  is  of  a  more  delicate  nature, 
not  only  because  we  should  have  to  speak  of  scholars  still  li\'ing, 
like  Pfleiderer  and  Hamack,  the  two  masters  we  have  the  privilege 
to  greet  respectfully  at  this  Congress,  but  also  because  there  is  not 
yet  enough  distance  for  judging  impartially  scholars  and  tendencies 
with  which  we  are  ourselves  connected. 

Two  statements  require  at  the  first  sight  our  attention.  While 
during  the  first  half  of  the  nineteenth  century  ecclesiastical  his- 
tory was  but  little  studied  except  in  German  universities,  since 
about  1860  other  countries  have  taken  a  more  and  more  active  part 
in  the  common  scholarly  work.^  First  of  all,  Dutchland  with  the 
great  school  of  Leiden, ^  afterwards  England,'  the  United  States 

'  We  do  not  forget  one  moment  that  in  our  days,  as  before,  the  share  of  German 
scholarship  is  preeminent  in  the  field  of  ecclesiastical  history.  Many  special 
periodicals,  a  great  quantity  of  unequaled  handbooks  bear  witness  to  the  rich 
production  of  scholarly  work  which  is  continually  aflforded  to  students  and 
theologians.  We  omit  mentioning  names;  complete  pages  would  be  required  to 
do  so.  We  shall  only  point  out  the  contributors  of  the  Texte  und  Untersuchungen 
zur  Geschichte  der  aUchristlichen  Literatur,  edited  under  the  direction  of  Ad.  Har- 
nack.  von  Gebhardt,  and,  during  the  first  period,  also  of  Zahn;  of  the  Theologische 
Literaturzeitung,  edited  by  Ad.  Hamack  and  E.  Schiirer;  of  the  Theologische 
Rund,'ichnu,  under  direction  of  Bousset;  of  the  Realencyklopddie  fiir  protestantische 
Theologie  und  Kirche,  the  second  and  third  editions  of  which  have  been  presided 
over  by  A.  Hauck;  of  the  Byzantinische  Zeitschrift,  edited  by  Krumbacher;  of  the 
Zeitschrift  fur  Kirchengeschichte,  edited  by  Brieger;  of  the  Zeitschrift  fur  die  neutes- 
tamentliche  Wisscnschaft,  edited  by  Preuschen  and  Kriiger;  of  the  Zeitschrift  fur 
Theologie  und  Kirche,  edited  by  Gottschick;  oi  the  Zeitschrift  fiir  Wissenschaftliche 
Theologie,  edited  by  Hilgenfeld.  We  ought  to  join  the  Studien  zur  Geschichte  der 
Theologie  und  Kirche,  edited  by  Bonwetsch,  the  Protestantische  Monatshefte,  the 
Theologische  Studien  und  Kritiken,  the  Schweizerische  Theologische  Zeitschrift 
(edited  by  Meili  in  Zurich) . 

Roman  Catholic  theologians,  on  their  side,  took  an  active  part  in  the  work 
of  ecclesiastical  history,  not  only  in  former  time  with  Moehler  and  with  the  old 
Catholics  Friedrich  and  DoUinger,  but  also  more  recently  with  Funk,  Bardenhewer, 
Denifie,  Ehrle,  Ehrhardt,  etc.  See  also  the  contributors  of  the  Archiv  fiir  Literatur 
und  Kirchengeschichte  des  Mittelalters,  the  Biblische  Studien,  the  Forschungen 
zur  christlichen  Literatur-  und  Dogmengeschichte,  the  KirchengeschichflicheSt  udien, 
the  Theologische  Quartalschrift,  the  Zeitschrift  fiir  katholische  theologie. 

*  It  will  be  sufficient  to  recall  the  names  of  Scholten,  Kuenen,  Rauwenhoff, 
Tiele,  etc.  For  ecclesiastical  history  in  Dutchland  let  us  mention  also  the  con- 
tributors of  the  Theologisch  Tydschrift,  the  Nederlandsch  Ar chief  voor  kerkgeschie- 
denis,  the  Teyler's  theologisch  Tydschrift,  the  Theologische  Studien. 

'  Since  the  publication  of  the  Essays  and  Reinews,  in  1860,  and  chiefly  since 
the  spirited  activity  of  Robertson  Smith,  free  historical  criticism  has  emancipated 
itself  from  ecclesiastical  tradition  and  has  taken  its  flight.  We  may  mention  here 
some  names  only:  the  Bishop  of  Durham,  Lightfoot,  Davidson,  Edwin  Hatch, 
Estlin  Carpenter,  Armitage,  Robinson  and  his  contributors  of  the  Texts  and 
Studies,  contributions  to  biblical  and  patristic  literature,  the  authors  of  the  Studia 
biblica  and  ecclesiastica  of  Oxford,  the  contributors  of  the  Critical  Review,  the 
Expositor,  the  Hibbert  Journal,  etc.  The  most  significant  example  of  the  flight 
of  wholly  independent  criticism  on  the  field  of  religious  history  in  England  is 
the  recent  simultaneous  publication  of  the  Dictionary  of  the  Bible,  edited  by 
Hastings,  and  of  the  Encyclopaedia  Biblica,  planned  by  Robertson  Smith,  but 
elaborated  under  the  direction  of  T.  K.  Chevne  and  Sutherland  Black. 


PROGRESS   OF   ECCLESIASTICAL  HISTORY         643 

of  America,  and  allow  me  to  join  without  counterfeit  modesty  also 
France,  where  under  the  influence  of  the  Ecole  de  Strasbourg  and 
of  Renan,  foremost  after  the  renovation  ^  of  higher  studies  since 
1870,  the  scientific  production  in  the  field  of  ecclesiastical  history 
has  much  increased.*  The  peculiar  character  of  the  present  period 
is  the  dreadful  quantity  of  publications  of  all  kinds  which  appear 
every  year  in  five  or  six  different  languages,  so  that  it  is  more  and 
more  difficult  to  be  acquainted  with  the  ever-increasing  historical 
production.  The  reproduction  only  of  titles  of  the  books,  papers, 
tracts,  or  essays,  published  every  year,  fills  a  whole  volume.^  Where 
is,  under  such  conditions,  the  man  who  may  pretend  to  study  by 
himself  and  directly  the  whole  history  of  the  church?  Each  of  us 
is  obliged  to  confine  himself  within  the  bounds  of  a  special  depart- 
ment of  the  large  field,  and  this  excessive  specialization  is  not  favor- 
able to  the  education  of  the  mind  nor  to  the  formation  of  historical 
judgment.  It  is  of  great  importance  that  periodicals  may  provide  for 
our  insufficiency  by  publishing  serious  and  impartial  reviews  of  the 
largest  possible  number  of  new  works. 

This  superabundance  of  historical  contributions  not  only  results 
from  the  extension  of  the  area,  where  church  history  is  cultivated. 
It  arises  also  —  and  this  is  our  second  statement  —  from  the  un- 
contested triumph  of  the  historical  method  in  the  religious  field. 
Scientific  concurrence  not  only  became  universal  like  economical 

'  To  be  mentioned  in  the  Strasbourg  school:  Edward  Reuss,  Baum,  Cunitz, 
Ch.  Schmidt,  Colani,  de  Pressense  (who  followed  afterwards  another  direction), 
Albert  R^ville,  Auguste  Sabatier.  After  the  war  of  1870  the  French  Pi-otestant 
faculty  of  Strasbourg  was  transferred  to  Paris  by  Lichtenberger  and  Sabatier. 
There  it  has  become  what  is  called  in  the  theological  world  the  "  school  of  Paris," 
whose  most  authorized  representative  is  now  M^n^-goz. 

^  Under  the  influence  of  Duchesne  a  young  school  of  learned  and  free-minded 
historians  arose  in  the  present  French  Catholic  clergy,  to  whom  belong  men  like 
Abb6  Loisy,  Lejay,  Hemmer,  Houtin,  etc.  There  should  also  be  mentioned  the 
contributors  of  the  Bulletin  CrifiqiLe,  the  Revue  hihlique  Internationale,  edited  by 
the  Dominican  friars  of  Jerusalem,  the  Melanges  d'histoire  et  d'archeologie,  edited 
by  the  Ecole  frangaise  de  Rome,  the  Remie  d^histoire  et  de  litterature  religieuses. 
See  also  in  Belgium  the  Anecdota  Maredsolana  and  the  Revue  Benedictine,  edited 
by  the  Benedictine  friars  of  Maredsous,  the  MicsSon,  the  Revue  de  VHistoire  eccUsi- 
astique,  edited  at  Lou  vain  by  Cauchie  and  Ladeuze;  and  with  the  old  Catholics 
in  Switzerland  the  Revue  internationale  de  tMologie,  edited  at  Bern,  bv  Michaud. 

What  will  become  of  this  interesting  flight  of  free  scholarship,  which  was  in- 
spired by  Pope  Leo  XIII,  if  the  spirit  which  seems  now  to  be  prevalent  at  the 
Vatican  gets  the  better? 

Independent  of  any  denominational  tie  are  in  France  the  Revue  de  VHistoire 
des  Religions,  the  Bibliotheque  de  I' Ecole  des  Charfes  (for  medieval  history),  and  the 
Revue  de  I'Orient  Latin. 

There  is  no  French  Protestant  periodical  specially  devoted  to  ecclesiastical 
history;  but  the  Revue  de  fheologie  ef  de  phiTosophie.  at  Lausanne,  the  Revue  de 
tMologie  et  des  questions  religieuses,  at  Montauban,  the  Revue  Chretienne,  edited 
by  John  Vi6not,  at  Paris,  often  publish  historical  papers.  We  ought  also  to 
mention  the  Bulletin  de  la  Societe  de  VHistoire  du  protestantisme  fraw;ais,  edited 
by  Weiss,  and  the  Annates  de  bibliographie  theologique,  by  E.  Ehrhardt,  in  Paris. 

'  The  Theologischer  Jahresbericht,  published  in  Beriin  by  the  editor  Schwetschke, 
and  the  Bibliographie  der  theologischen  Literatur,  by  the  same.  We  ought  also  to 
mention  here  the  excellent  bibliographv,  which  appears  every  fortnight  in  the 
Theologische  Ldteraturzeitung ,  edited  by  Professor  Schurer  (Berlin,  Hinrichs). 


644  HISTORY  OF  THE  CHRISTIAN  CHURCH 

concurrence,  but  everywhere  in  religious  scholarship  historical  and 
critical  studies  became  so  preponderating  that  they  have  nearly 
displaced  all  others.  Look  at  the  programmes  of  whatever  theo- 
logical or  higher  religious  school.  You  will  certainly  observe  that 
all  professors  teach  history  or  practice  historical  and  philological 
criticism:  the  professor  of  dogmatic  grounds  his  teaching  upon 
the  history  of  dogma,  the  professor  of  exegesis  upon  the  history 
of  the  text  or  upon  the  historical  explanation  of  the  personality  of 
the  author,  of  his  ideas,  of  his  style,  and  so  further  in  all  branches 
of  theological  teaching. 

In  the  department  of  religious  science  as  well  as  in  all  other  moral 
sciences,  the  second  half  of  the  nineteenth  century  has  been,  before 
all,  the  age  of  the  historical  method,  that  is,  of  the  scientific  and 
critical  method,  even  with  those  men  whose  dogmatic  or  philosoph- 
ical convictions  seem  to  require  other  agents  in  history  than  the 
forces  of  rational  determinism  which  historical  criticism  requires. 
The  historian  who  now  relies  on  miracle  or  upon  arguments  of  a 
confessional  kind  is,  so  to  sa)'-,  disqualified  amongst  all  those  who 
are  not  imbued  with  the  same  confessional  faith.  So  the  most  noto- 
rious supernaturalists  and  the  most  decided  partisans  take  great 
care  commonly  not  to  ground  their  historical  conclusions  on  dog- 
matic reasons. 

Philosophical  speculation  is  also  no  longer  appreciated  by  the 
ecclesiastical  historians  of  to-day.  Hegel's  dialectical  evolutionism 
has  been  amended  by  that  of  Darwin  or  of  Spencer,  and  Aug,  Comte's 
positivism  has  influenced  us  all,  even  those  amongst  us  who  are 
not  positivists.  Under  a  myth  or  under  a  legend  we  want  to  dis- 
cover the  real  fact  which  gave  rise  to  it.  The  great  development  of 
experimental  sciences  has  reacted  upon  moral  sciences  and  increased 
the  sense  of  reality  and  the  need  of  precision.  Now  records  are  more 
strictly  respected  and  the  authority  of  duly  ascertained  facts  has 
taken  root  in  the  historian's  mind  more  deeply  than  before.  Theories 
are  mistrusted,  even  when  they  are  supported  by  the  most  powerful 
dialectics.  What  we  require  essentially  from  ecclesiastical  as  well 
as  from  all  other  historians,  if  they  aim  at  any  authority  for  their 
works,  is:  to  inquire  as  completely  as  possible  after  all  records  or 
testimonies,  interpreting  them  by  the  most  firmly  established  rules  of 
philology,  subjecting  them  to  a  most  severe  criticism,  but  without  any 
prejudicial  view,  analyzing  them  minutely  so  as  to  see  things  as  they 
are  and  not  as  we  may  want  them  to  be;  to  search  for  truth  in 
itself  without  any  apologetical  prepossession;  to  replace  men  of  the 
past  in  their  real  life  and  not  in  an  abstract  outline ;  to  discover  for 
each  event,  for  each  fact,  for  each  action  of  men  the  reason  sufficient 
to  explain  them  rationally  and  to  place  them  in  the  universal  con- 
catenation of  all  phenomena. 


PROGRESS  OF  ECCLESIASTICAL  HISTORY         645 

Here  appears  another  characteristic  of  the  present  conception  of 
ecclesiastical  history.  It  is  no  longer  a  history  above  the  common 
run,  of  a  nature  different  from  all  others,  and  which  requires  special 
treatment.  Formerly  the  history  of  Christianity  seemed  generally  to 
be  apart,  as  a  special  compartment  cut  off  from  the  rest  of  history, 
a  sacred  territory  separated  from  the  profane  world.  Now  the  progress 
of  our  general  historical  knowledge  makes  us  recognize  ever  better 
that  the  history  of  Christianity  —  of  Christian  religion  as  well  as  of 
Christian  Church  —  is  intimately  bound  with  the  economical,  moral, 
social,  and  religious  history  of  the  surrounding  world.  The  water- 
tight bulkhead  which  separated  the  so-called  "profane"  from  the 
so-called  "sacred"  studies  has  been  removed,  even  for  the  period  of 
the  New  Testament.  Not  only  is  the  same  method  to  be  used  in  both 
branches,  but  there  is  no  one  to-day  who  may  contest  that  early 
Christianity  is  connected,  not  only  with  biblical  Judaism,  but  also 
with  a  Judaism  quite  permeated  with  Chaldsean,  Iranian,  and  Jewish 
Alexandrian  survivals.  Every  one  must  recognize  how  large  is  the 
influence  of  Hellenism  and  of  Roman  pagan  tradition  in  Christianity 
as  it  became  by  conquering  the  ancient  world.  Nobody  can  over- 
look the  eminent  contribution  of  Germanic  religion  and  morals  in 
the  Christian  world  of  the  Middle  Ages.  Christianity  did  not  evolve 
of  itself,  by  its  sole  proper  principles,  with  only  internal  logic  and 
without  the  influence  of  the  surrounding  world:  its  evolution  was 
continually  determined  by  the  nature  of  the  different  societies 
among  which  it  was  developing  and  by  the  precedents  of  the  people 
among  whom  it  was  operating. 

This  characteristic  of  our  present  conception  of  ecclesiastical 
history  seems  to  me  so  decided  that  I  dare  to  say  it  is  plainly  dis- 
tinctive of  our  scientific  situation  to-day.  For  it  implies  a  deep 
transformation  of  the  ancient  idea  of  revelation,  even  much  deeper 
than  most  of  the  theologians  think,  who  practice  this  modern  histor- 
ical method,  although  they  maintain  more  or  less  of  traditional  doc- 
trines of  the  special  origins  and  the  particular  fate  of  the  Christian 
religion.^  It  is  not  in  our  province  here  to  elaborate  this  dogmatic 
side  of  the  problem.    We  have  only  to  notice  it. 

Thus  the  history  of  Christianity  becomes  a  section  of  the  general 
history  of  religions.'   It  becomes  secularized.    This  is  a  capital  point, 

'  When  enumerating  the  periodicals  devoted  to  ecclesiastical  history,  we 
observe  that  the  distinction  between  Catholic  and  Protestant  publications  is  still 
widespread.  The  reason  is  that  most  of  these  periodicals  are  connected  with 
faculties  or  schools  preparing  ministers  for  the  different  ecclesiastical  denomina- 
tions. But  their  e&says  may  claim  historical  authority  only  in  the  measure  in 
which  they  are  free  from  any  confessional  character  or  any  theological  or  philoso- 
phical prejudice. 

*  We  must  notice  the  large  development  of  the  general  history  of  religions  in 
the  last  twenty  years:  foundations  of  new  lectureships  devoted  to  general  religious 
history  in  Dutchland,  in  Switzerland,  in  France,  in  Sweden,  and  especially  in  the 
United  States,  where  this  movement  was  from  the  first  welcomed  (Everett 


646  HISTORY  OF   THE  CHRISTIAN  CHURCH 

for  it  is  only  under  that  condition  that  it  may  claim  its  place  in  the 
cycle  of  sciences.  Even  the  very  programme  of  this  Congress  of  Arts 
and  Science  in  St.  Louis  is  the  confirmation  of  my  statement. 

To  improve  really  our  studies,  we  ought  to  push  them  forward  in 
the  direction  so  indicated.  There  are,  at  the  present  time,  most  im- 
portant problems  to  be  solved.  On  the  one  side  we  cannot  understand 
the  psychology  of  early  Christianity  nor  its  theological  and  ecclesi- 
astical formation  without  becoming  better  aware  of  the  precedent 
religious  state  of  the  people  who  became  Christian,  and  growing 
familiar  with  the  pagan  world  where  Christianity  took  its  historical 
shape.  On  the  other  hand,  we  cannot  appreciate  the  religious  value 
of  the  ancient  Christian  data  without  being  able  to  compare  them 
with  other  religious  data  of  the  same  kind  in  other  religions.  For 
instance,  if  we  want  to  understand  the  origin  of  Christian  monas- 
ticism,  it  is  necessary  not  only  to  know  the  spiritual  tendencies 
which  in  the  Christian  Church  itself  drove  out  of  the  civil  life  such 
a  lot  of  believers,  but  no  less  the  parallel  tendencies  which  were  at 
work  in  the  pagan  society  of  the  same  time.  And  if  we  want  to 
appreciate  this  great  historical  event,  we  ought  to  be  able  to  compare 
Christian  asceticism  and  monasticism  with  the  similar  movements  in 
other  religions,  as,  for  instance,  in  Buddhism. 

We  ought  not  to  be  taken  up  wholly  by  little  monographies. 
They  are  indeed  absolutely  necessary.  But  they  are  fruitless,  if 
they  remain  without  connection  with  a  more  general  historical  study. 
There  are  certainly  still  many  special  points  to  elucidate  in  the 
proper  field  of  ecclesiastical  history,  especially  in  the  period  follow- 
ing the  Nicean  Council ;  but  those  points  are  generally  of  secondary 
importance.  Let  them  be  studied  in  a  great  number  of  careful  mono- 
graphies. That  is  excellent;  that  is  necessary!  But  this  dust  of 
scholarship  cannot  by  itself  improve  our  scientific  knowledge,  if  it  be 
not  worked  up  by  men  of  a  larger  and  more  comprehensive  mind,  able 
to  use  all  those  little  and  painfully  elaborated  pieces  of  stone  to 
make  up  the  mosaic  in  which  the  evolution  of  living  history  is  re- 
presented. Alas!  that  is  what  we  most  want.  How  few  are  the 
scholars  able  to  join  an  immense  learning  in  all  details  with  har- 
monious and  powerful  general  views,  like  the  master  at  whose  side 
I  have  the  honor  of  speaking  to-day ! 

Scientific  research  does  not  consist  only  in  resuming  ever  and  ever 
the  same  subjects.    Beware  of  generalizing  early  and  prematurely! 

Warren,  Goodspeed,  Toy,  Morris  Jastrow,  Jr.,  G.  F.  Moore,  Nathaniel  Schmidt, 
and  many  others;  collection  of  Handbooks  on  the  History  of  Religions).  Two  special 
reviews  are  devoted  to  these  studies:  the  Revue  de  I'Histoire  des  Religions,  edited, 
by  Jean  R^ville  in  France,  and  the  Archiv  fiXr  ReligionsmssenscJiaft,  edited  in 
Germany  by  Achelis,  and,  since  1904,  also  by  Dieterich.  Concerning  this  recent 
development  of  the  general  history  of  religion,  see  the  article  in  the  Revue  de 
I'Histoire  des  Religions,  t.  XLin,  p.  58,  sqq. 


PROGRESS   OF   ECCLESIASTICAL   HISTORY         647 

Such  generalizations  are  the  very  negation  of  scientific  method.  But 
let  us  not  be  afraid  to  enlarge  the  field  of  our  researches  and  to  bor- 
row from  the  neighbors  all  that  may  enlighten  our  mind. 

Our  highest  ambition  should  be  to  enlarge  our  historical  material.* 
If  there  are  probably  no  more  important  discoveries  to  make  in  the 
libraries  of  central  and  occidental  Europe,  except  perhaps  in  some 
palimpsests  ^  —  there  are  in  all  likehhood  still  fine  records  to  dis- 
cover in  Oriental  countries.  Till  now  we  have  thoroughly  studied 
Christianity  only  in  the  Graeco-Latin  and  in  the  Germanic  world.  How 
much  remains  to  be  done  before  we  can  know  the  development  of 
this  same  Christianity  among  Oriental  or  Slavonic  peoples!  How 
uninformed  are  we  still  of  the  religious  change  which  took  place  at 
the  conversion  of  a  great  part  of  the  Christian  world  from  the  religion 
of  Jesus  to  that  of  Muhammad?  Asia  Minor,  Syria,  Palestine,  Egypt, 
perhaps  also  Persia,  certainly  still  conceal  vast  unknown  historical 
treasures.    We  have  to  direct  the  scholars  to  that  side  also. 

Finally  I  should  like  to  account  more  exactly  for  the  real  sense 
of  what  I  called  the  secularization  of  ecclesiastical  history.  The  same 
rational  and  critical  method,  which  is  used  in  all  other  parts  of  his- 
torical scholarship  must  be  applied  to  religious  or  ecclesiastical  his- 
tory: that  is  a  fact  beyond  all  further  discussion.  But  to  be  able 
to  apply  it  in  this  special  department,  you  ought  to  know,  of  your- 
self, what  is  religious  feeling  or  religious  emotion.  A  scholar  quite 
devoid  of  religious  disposition  will  study  religious  history  only  as 
a  deaf  man  might  study  the  history  of  music  or  a  blind  man  that 
of  painting.  He  lacks  the  sense,  which  alone  enables  him  to  recog- 
nize and  appreciate  the  inmost  value  of  religious  doctrines,  rites,  or 
institutions. 

Let  us  not  forget  this :  in  the  history  of  the  Christian  Church  as  well 
as  of  all  other  religions,  the  work  to  be  done  is  not  alone  of  intellectual 

'  The  discovery  of  a  document  like  the  Philosophoumena,  for  instance,  has 
contributed  more  to  our  knowledge  of  Gnosticism  than  all  dissertations  on  texts 
already  known.  In  the  last  quarter  of  the  preceding  century  o\ir  historical  material 
for  the  knowledge  of  ancient  Christianity  has  been  largely  increased  by  the 
discovery  of  new  texts,  such  as  various  Logia  Jesu,  the  Didache,  fragments  of 
the  Gospel  and  of  the  Revelation  of  Petrus,  the  Syriac  Sinaitic  version  of  the 
gospels,  the  Acts  of  Paul,  fragments  of  several  apocalypses  and  apostolic  acts  (for 
instance  of  John  and  of  Peter) ,  of  Coptic  apocryphal  gospels,  the  old  Latin  version  of 
the  Epistle  of  Clemens  Romanus  to  the  Corinthians,  new  versions  of  the  Didascalia, 
the  Apology  of  Aristides,  new  Gnostic  texts  (chiefly  the  Pistis  Sophia,  the  treatises 
of  the  Codex  Brucianus,  magic  formulas  and  incantations),  acts  of  martyrs, 
original  texts  of  "  libelli,"  writings  of  Hippolytus  (Commentary  on  Daniel,  chiefly) 
and  of  Methodius,  fragments  of  Melito  of  Sardes,  of  Origenes,  of  Peter  of  Alexandria, 
writings  of  Priscillian,  the  Peregrinatio  Silviae  ad  loca  sancta,  the  History  of 
Dioscoros  by  Theopistos,  and  numerous  fragments  of  the  Church  Fathers.  More- 
over the  writings  of  the  Latin  Fathers  are  reedited  in  the  best  conditions  in  the 
Corpus  scriptorum  ecclesiasticorum  latinorum,  and  those  of  the  Greek  Christian 
writers  of  the  first  three  centuries  are  published  again  with  all  the  resources  of 
modem  paleography  and  criticism  in  the  Corpus  edited  under  the  patronage  of 
the  Academy  of  Sciences  of  Berlin. 

*  This  is  shown,  for  instance,  by  the  discoveries  of  Dom  Morin  published  in  the 
Anecdota  Maredsolana. 


648  HISTORY  OF  THE  CHRISTIAN   CHURCH 

nature.  You  must  penetrate  the  soul  of  men  in  the  past;  you 
must  feel  as  living  realities  what  was  living  in  their  mind,  in  their 
heart,  in  their  conscience;  you  must  lay  hold  not  only  of  the  dead 
formula  but  of  the  very  spirit.  We  should  not  go  back  to  the  edifying 
kind  of  history,  as  practiced  by  the  pietists  or  by  Neander.  We  leave 
to  preachers  and  to  moralists  the  important  duty  of  working  up  the 
precious  lessons  which  history  affords  them.  We  claim  only  justice 
and  truth.  So  long  as  we  have  not  acknowledged  the  feelings,  -the 
emotions,  even  the  impressions  produced  by  a  doctrine,  by  a  relig- 
ious personality,^  institution,  cult,  or  any  other  religious  state- 
ment; so  long  as  we  have  not  caught  what  needs  they  satisfied,  and 
to  what  moral  dispositions  they  gave  satisfaction;  so  long  we  may 
not  claim  to  know  them  really.  History  of  dogmas  or  of  cultural 
observances  is  the  intellectual  notation  of  religious  and  moral 
experiences;  as  long  as  we  have  not  recognized  what  these  experi- 
ences are,  we  have  the  shell  but  not  the  nut  of  religion. 

In  different  terms  we  ought  to  give  more  place  in  our  historical 
works  to  religious  psychology,  but  to  a  psychology  large-minded  and 
open  for  all  forms  of  religious  life  in  human  kind,  an  unsectarian 
psychology,  gifted  with  that  generous  sympathy  which  alone  enables 
us  to  penetrate  the  inmost  nature  of  other  people  and  to  understand 
even  those  moral  experiences  which  are  most  unfamiliar  to  ourselves, 
because  it  makes  us  lay  aside  our  own  peculiarities  and  revive  in 
others.  Secularized  ecclesiastical  history  ought  not  to  be  a  withered 
history,  mere  anatomy.  We  have  to  present  to  our  contemporaries, 
not  fossils,  but  living  beings,  who  have  worshiped,  cried  for  assist- 
ance, glorified,  who  have  sung  and  lamented,  who  have  trembled 
before  the  Great  Mystery,  who  revolted  and  bethought  themselves, 
who  loved  and  prayed,  —  not  only  theologians,  priests,  or  rituals. 

*  In  religious  history  an  important  place  is  to  be  assigned  to  great  personalities. 
The  experience  of  our  day  as  well  as  the  most  trustworthy  records  of  the  past 
bear  witness  to  the  intensity  of  the  influence  of  certain  personalities,  which  are  pro- 
ductive of  moral  and  religious  Ufe.  Those  who  believe  in  some  one  are  perhaps 
more  numerous  than  those  who  believe  in  something  (a  doctrine,  an  idea,  or  the 
virtue  of  a  practice).   This  is  especially  true  in  ethic  religions. 


SUPPLEMENTARY   PAPER 

A  short  paper  was  contributed  to  this  Section  by  Professor  Henry  C.  Sheldon, 
of  Boston  University,  on  "  The  Contributions  of  Alexandrianism  to  New  Testa- 
ment Thought."  The  speaker  defined  Alexandrianism  briefly  as  marked  by  the 
following  peculiarities:  "  (1)  A  prodigal  use  of  allegorical  interpretation,  largely 
under  the  stimulus  of  an  ambition  to  show  the  accord  of  the  Sacred  Oracles 
with  various  products  of  Greek  philosophy.  (2)  Great  stress  upon  the  tran- 
scendence of  God  and  a  somewhat  dualistic  conception  of  his  relation  to  the  world. 
(3)  Interposition  between  God  and  the  world  of  a  mediating  agent,  this  agent 
being  termed  in  Philonian  phrase  the  Logos,  and  embracing  in  its  significance  the 
gist  of  the  Platonic  doctrine  of  ideas  and  of  the  Stoic  doctrine  of  an  immanent 
reason  in  the  world.  (4)  Affiliation  with  the  Hellenic  anthropology  in  a  disparaging 
estimate  of  the  body  as  a  clog  or  fetter  to  the  spirit.  (5)  A  somewhat  abstract 
representation  of  the  future  life,  a  representation  setting  forth  the  general  notion 
of  an  immortal  existence  of  disembodied  souls,  and  discountenancing  or  ignoring 
the  idea  both  of  a  bodily  resurrection  and  of  a  world  crisis." 

The  speaker  first  considered  at  some  length  the  possible  obligation  of  Paul 
to  Alexandrian  teaching,  but  held  that  the  resemblances  are  not  such  as  to 
testify  to  any  explicit  borrowing,  and,  even  where  it  appears,  it  is  still  to  be 
proved  that  he  borrowed  specifically  from  Alexandria  instead  of  imbibing  through 
contact  with  the  general  sphere  of  Hellenic  culture.  On  the  whole  the  speaker 
agreed  with  the  conclusion  of  Professor  Hamack,  that  the  writings  of  Paul  afford 
very  Uttle  indication  of  the  influence  of  Philo.  In  the  Epistle  to  the  Hebrews, 
however,  we  enter  into  an  atmosphere  which  bears  an  unmistakable  tinge  of 
Alexandrianism . 

Concerning  the  Johannine  writings  the  speaker  concluded  that  while  they  reflect 
in  a  measure  the  Alexandrian, 'there  is  no  good  reason  to  suppose  such  a  radical 
dependence  of  the  one  upon  the  other,  as  some  writers  have  assumed.  The  author 
of  the  Fourth  Gospel  used  the  Philonean  teaching,  not  as  a  copyist,  but  as  a  man 
of  strong  original  bent  uses  material  from  any  source. 


BIBLIOGRAPHY:   HISTORY   OF   RELIGION 

The  following  general  bibliography  of  the  Department  of  Religion  was  prepared 
through  the  courtesy  of  Professor  Nathaniel  Schmidt,  Professor  of  Semitic  Lan- 
guages and  Literatures  in  Cornell  University,  and  Director  of  the  American  School 
of  Archaeology  in  Jerusalem,  Syria. 

The  bibliography  on  the  earliest  forms  of  religion,  and  on  the  various  ethnic 
faiths,  which  follows  the  general  bibliography,  is  also  contributed  by  Professor 
Schmidt. 

GENERAL 

Alviella,  G.  d',  Introduction  a  I'histoire  generale  des  religions,  1886. 
Bernard,  J.  F.,  Ceremonies  and  Religious  Customs  of  the  World,  1723. 
Bruno,  G.,  Spaccio  della  Bestia  Trionfante,  1584. 
Cairo,  J.,  Introduction  to  the  Philosophy  of  Rehgion,  1880,  2d  ed.  1900. 

Evolution  of  Rehgion,  1893. 
Clarke,  J.  F.,  The  Ten  Great  Rehgions,  1886. 
CoMTE,  I.  A.  M.,  Cours  de  philosophic  positive,  1830-42. 
Constant,  Benjamin  de  Rebecque,  De  la  religion  consid^r^e  dans  sa  source, 

ses  formes,  et  ses  developpements,  1824-31. 
Dupuis,  C.  F.,  L'Origine  de  tous  les  cultes,  ou  religion  universelle,  1795. 
Emerson,  R.  W.,  Essays,  1841. 
Feuerbach,  L.,  Das  Wesen  der  Religion,  1840. 
GiLLiOT,  E.,  Etudes  historiques  et  critiques  sur  les  religions  et  institutions  com- 

par6es,  1883. 
Hardwick,  C,  Christ  and  Other  Masters,  1855-58. 
Hartmann,  E.  v..  Das  rehgiose  Bewusstsein  der  Menschheit,  1882. 
Hegel,  G.  W.  F.,  Philosophic  der  Rehgion,  1832. 
Herbert  of  Cherbury,  De  Religione  Gentilium,  1663. 

Herder,  J.  G.  v.,  Ideen  zur  Philosophic  der  Geschichte  der  Menschheit,  1829. 
Hume,  David,  The  Natural  History  of  Religion,  1757. 
Jevons,  F.  B.,  Introduction  to  the  History  of  Rehgion,  1896. 
Jastrow,  Morris,  The  Study  of  Religion,  1901. 

Kant,  Immanuel,  Die  Rehgion  innerhalb  der  Grenzen  der  blossen  Vemunft,  1793. 
Leggb,  James,  The  Chinese  Classics,  1861-73. 

The  Texts  of  Taoism,  1891. 
Lotze,  R.  H.,  Grundziige  der  Rehgionsphilosophie,  1882. 
Meiners,  a.,  Allgemeine  kritische  Geschichte  der  Rehgionen,  1806. 
Menzies,  Allan,  History  of  Religion,  1895. 
Mill,  John  S.,  Three  Essays  on  Rehgion,  1874. 
Mueller,  Max,  Lectures  on  the  Science  of  Religion,  1872. 

Origin  and  Growth  of  Religion,  1878. 

Natural  Rehgion,  2d  ed.  1892. 

Physical  Rehgion,  1890. 

Anthropological  Religion,  1891. 

Theosophy,  or  Psychological  Religion,  2d  ed.  1899. 
Orelli,  C,  Allgemeine  Religionsgeschichte,  1899. 

Pfleiderer,  Otto,  Die  Religion,  ihr  Wesen  und  ihre  Geschichte,  1869-78. 
Rehgionsphilosophie  auf  geschichtlicher  Grundlage,  1878-93. 
Rawlinson,  G.,  Religions  of  the  Ancient  World  (s.  a.). 


BIBLIOGRAPHY:   HISTORY   OF   RELIGION  651 

Kenan,  J.  E.,  Etudes  d'liistoire  religieuse,  2d  ed.  1857. 
Reville,  a.,  Prolegomenes  de  I'histoire  des  religions,  1881. 

Les  religions  des  peuples  non  civilises,  1883. 
Ross,  Alexander,  Pansebeia,  or  a  View  of  All  Religions  in  the  World,  1653. 
Sabatier,  A.jEsquisse  d'une  philosophie  de  la  religion  d'aprfes  la  psychologie  et 

I'histoire,  1897,  6th  ed.  1901. 
Saussaye,  C.  de  la,  Lehrbuch  der  Rehgionsgeschichte,  2d  ed.  1897. 
ScHELLiNG,  F.  W.  J.,  Einleitung  in  die  Philosophie  der  Mythologie  (posthumous), 

1856. 
Schleiermacher,  F.,  Ueber  die  ReUgion,  Reden  an  die  Gebildeten  unter  ihren 

Verachtem,  1799. 
Spencer,  Herbert,  Principles  of  Sociology,  1876-80. 
Spinoza,  Benedict,  Tractatus  Theologico-Politicus,  1670. 
TiELE,  C.  P.,   Hoofdtrekken  der  godsdienstwetenschap,  1876. 
The  Elements  of  the  Science  of  Religion,  1897-99. 

Geschiedenis  van  den  godsdienst  in  de  oudheid  tot  op  Alexander  den 
Groote,  1893-01. 
Tylor,  E.  B.,  Primitive  Culture,  1871. 
Anthropology,  1881. 
The  Natural  History  of  ReUgion,  1900. 
Wette,  L.  W.  M.  de,  Ueber  die  Religion,  ihr  Wesen,  ihre  Erscheinungsformen, 
iind  ihren  Einfliiss  auf  das  Leben,  1827. 

Annales  du  Mus6e  Guimet,  1888  ff. 

Archiv  fiir  Religionswissenschaft,  edited  by  F.  Achelis,  1898  ff . 

The  Sacred  Books  of  the  East,  edited  by  Max  Miiller. 

Revue  de  I'Histoire  des  Religions,  edited  by  J.  Reville,  1880  ff. 

Numerous  articles  in  — 

Journal  Asiatique. 

Zeitschrift  der  Deutschen  Morgenlandischer  GeseUschaft. 

Journal  of  the  American  Oriental  Society. 

Proceedings  of  the  Society  for  Biblical  Archeology. 

Theologisch  Tijdschrift. 

Giornale  della  Society  Asiatica. 

The  New  World. 

American  Journal  of  Theology. 

The  Hibbert  Journal. 
Articles  in  — 

Lichtenberger,  Encyclopedic  des  Sciences  Religieuses,  1877-83. 

Encyclopaedia  Britannica. 

Hastings  Bible  Dictionary,  especially  vol.  v. 

Cheyne's  Encyclopaedia  Biblica. 

The  New  International  Encyclopedia. 

La  Grande  Encyclopedic. 

WORKS   ON   THE  EARLIEST   FORMS   OF   RELIGION 

Alviella,  Goblet  d',  Les  Origines  de  I'ldolatrie,  in  Revue  de  I'Histoire  des 

Religions,  1885. 
Bachofen,  J.  J.,  Das  Mutterrecht,  1861. 
Brosses,  C.  de,  Du  Culte  des  dieux  fetiches,  1760. 
Caspari,  O.,  Die  Urgeschichte  der  Menschheit,  1873. 
Frazer,  J.  G.,  Totemism,  1887. 

The  Golden  Bough,  2d  ed.  1900. 


652  BIBLIOGRAPHY:  HISTORY  OF   RELIGION 

FusTEL  DE  CouLANGES,  La  cit6  antique,  1864. 
GuBERNATis,  A.  DE,  Zoological  Mythology,  1872. 
La  Mythologie  des  Plantes,  1878-82. 
Manuale  di  mitologia  comparata,  1880. 
HoEKSTRA,  S.,  Bronnen  en  grondslagen  van  het  godsdienstig  geloof,  1864. 
Lang,  Andrew,  Custom  and  Myth,  1884. 

Myth,  Ritual,  and  Religion,  1887,  2d  ed.  1899. 
Magic  and  Religion,  1901. 
Leclercq,  a.  Bouche,  L'Histoire  de  la  divination  dans  I'antiquite,  1879-82. 
LipPERT,  Julius,   Der  Seelencult   in  seinen   Beziehungen   zur  Althebraiscben 

Religion,  1881. 
Lubbock,  John,  Origin  of  Civilization  and  the  Primitive  Condition  of  Man, 

1870. 
Maclennan,  J.  F.,  The  Worship  of  Plants  and  Animals,  1869-70. 

Primitive  Marriage,  1865. 
Reville,  Albert,  Les  religions  des  peuples  non  civilises,  1883. 
RosKOFF,  G.  v..  Das  Religionswesen  der  rohesten  Naturvolker,  1880. 
ScHULTZE,  Fr.  Der  Fetischismus.    Ein  Beitrag  zur  Anthropologie  in  der  Reli- 

gionsgeschichte,  1871. 
Smith,  W.  Robertson,  Kinship  and  Marriage  in  Early  .Arabia,  1885. 
Tylor,  E.  B.,  Primitive  Culture,  1871. 

Wilken,  G.  a.,  Het   Animisme  bij    den   volken   van   den  Indischen  Archipel, 
1884-85. 
Das  Matriarchat  bei  den  Alten  Arabern,  1884. 
Zeller,  E.,  Ueber  Urspnmg  und  Wesen  der  Religion,  1877. 

POLYNESIA 

Gill,  W.  W.,  Mjrths  and  Songs  from  the  South  Pacific,  1876. 

Gret,  G.,  Polynesian  Mjrthology,  1855. 

Reville,  A.,  Les  religions  des  peuples  non  civilises,  1883. 

Schirren,  C,  Die   Wandersagen  der  Neuseelander  und  der  Maoris,  1856. 

AMERICA 

Mueller,  J.  G.,  Geschichte  der  Amerikanischen  Urreligionen,  1867. 
Reville,  A.,  Les  Religions  du  Mexique,  de  I'Am^rique  Centrale  et  du  Perou, 
1885. 

AFRICA 

Bastian,  a.,  Ein  Besuch  in  San  Salvador,  1859. 
Reville,  A.,  Les  religions  des  peuples  non  civilises,  1883. 
Wilson,  J.  L.,  Western  Africa,  1856. 

CHINA 

Douglas,  R.  K.,  Confucianism  and  Taoism  compared  with  Christianity,  1879. 

Edkins,  J.,  Religion  in  Chma,  1878. 

Harlez,  C.  de,  Textes  Taoites,  traduits  des  originaux  chinois  et  comment^s,  1891. 

Julien,  Stanislas,  Le  Livre  de  la  Voie  et  de  la  Virtu,  1842. 

Legge,  J.,  The  Religions  of  China,  1880. 

Parker,  E.  S.,  China  and  Religion,  1905. 

Plath,  J.  H.,  Die  Religion  imd  der  Cultus  der  Alten  Chinesen,  1862. 

Plath,  J.  H.,  Confucius  und  seiner  Schfller  Leben  vmd  Lehren,  1867-74. 

Remusat,  a.,  M^moire  sur  la  vie  et  les  opinions  de  Lao-tsen,  1820. 

RosNY,  L.  L.  L.  DE,  Le  Taoisme,  1892. 


BIBLIOGRAPHY:  HISTORY  OF  RELIGION  653 

JAPAN 

CoBBOLD,  C,  Religion  in  Japan,  Buddhism,  Shintoism,  Christianity,  1894. 

Florenz,  K.,  Japanische  Mythologie,  1901. 

Griffis,  W.  E.,  Religions  of  Japan  (from  the  dawn  of  history  to    the  era  of 

Meija  (1895). 
Nanjo,  Bttnto,  a  Short  History  of  the  Twelve  Japanese  Buddhist  Sects,  1887. 
RosNY,  L.  L.  L.  DE,  La  Religion  des  Japonais,  1881. 
Transactions  of  the  Asiatic  Society  of  Japan. 

INDIA  :   ON   BRAHMANISM 

Barth,  a..  Religion  of  India,  1890. 
Bergaigne,  a..  La  Rehgion  V^dique,  1878-83. 
Deussen,  p..  Das  System  des  Vedanta,  1883. 
Hopkins,  E,  W.,  ReUgions  of  India,  1895. 
Mueller,  F.  Max,  Lecture  on  the  Vedas,  1865. 

Theosophy  or  Psychological  Religion,  1899. 
Regnaud,  p.,  Mat^riaux  pour  servir  k  I'Histoire  de  la  Philosophie  de  I'lnde, 

1876-78. 
Schroeder,  L.  v.,  Pythagoras  und  die  Inder,  1884. 
Williams,  MoNiER,  Brahmanism  and  Hinduism,  1887. 

INDIA:   ON  BUDDHISM 

Alabaster,  A.,  The  Wheel  of  the  Law  (Buddhism  illustrated  from  Siamese 
sources  by  the  Modem  Buddhist,  Chao  Phya  Thipakon),  1871. 

BuRNOUF,  Eugene,  Introduction  k  I'Histoire  du  Bouddhisme  Indien,  1876. 

Davids,  Rhys,  History  and  Literature  of  Buddhism,  1895. 

Hilaire,  Barthelemy  Saint,  Le  Bouddha  et  sa  Religion,  1862. 

Grundwedbl,  A.,  Mythologie  des  Buddhismus  in  Tibet  und  der  Mongolie,  1900. 

Kern,  J.  H.  C,  Geschiedenis  van  het  Buddhisme,  1895. 

Oldenberg,  H.,  Buddha:  Sein  Leben,  seine  Lehre,  seine  Germeinde,  1881, 
2d  ed.  1897. 

ScHOTT,  W.,  Ueber  den  Buddhismus  in  Hochasien  und  China,  1845. 

Senart,  Emile,  Essai  sur  la  L^gende  de  Bouddha,  1895. 

JAINISM 

Jacobi,  H.,  Jaina  Sutras,  in  Sacred  Books  of  the  East. 

Lehmann,  E.,  Beziehungen  der  Jaina  Literatur  zu  anderen  Literaturzweigen, 

1883. 
Warren,  S.  J.,  De  Godsdienstige  en  wijsgeerige  Begrippen  der  Jainas,  1875. 
Weber,  Otto,  The  Sacred  Literature  of  the  Jains,  1893. 
Williams,  Monier,  In  Journal  of  the  Royal  Asiatic  Society,  1888,  vol.  xx. 

PERSIA 

Darmesteter,  James,  The  Zend-Avesta,  1892-93. 

Haug,  Martin,  Essays  on  the  Sacred  Language,  Writings  and  Religion  of  the 

Parsis,  3d  ed.  1884. 
Jackson,  J.  W.,  Die  Iranische  Religion  in  Grundriss  der  Iranischen  Philologie 
1900-03. 
Zoroaster,  the  Prophet  of  Ancient  Iran,  1889. 


654  BIBLIOGRAPHY:  HISTORY  OF   RELIGION 

Lehmann,  C,  Die  Perser,  in  Saussaye's  Lehrbuch  der  Religionsgeschichte,  2d 
ed.  1897. 
Zarathustra,  1899-1902. 
MENAjgr,   D.,  Les  Parsis,   Histoire  des  Communit^s  Zoroastriennes   de  I'lnde. 

1898. 
SoEDERBLOM,  Nathan,  La  Vie  Future  d'aprfes  le  Mazdeisme,  1901. 

Editor  of  Tiele's  Kompendium  der  Religionsgeschichte,  1903. 
TiELE,  C.  P.,  Zarathustra,  1864. 

Geschiedenis  van  het  godsdienst  in  de  oudheid,  1897-1901. 

ASSYRIA  AND   BABYLONIA 

Jastrow,  M.,  Religion  of  Babylonia  and  Assyria,  1898. 
'Jensen,  P.,  Die  Kosmologie  der  Babylonier,  1890. 
TiELE,  C.  P.,  Geschiedenis,  vol.  i,  1891. 
Articles  in  — 

Zeitschrift  fiir  Assyriologie. 

Recueil  de  Travaux. 

Journal  of  Biblical  Archaeology. 

SYRLA  * 

Baethgen,  K.  F.,  Beitrage  zur  Semitischen  Religionsgeschichte,  1883. 

Baudissin,  W.  W.  v.,  Studien  zur  Semitischen  ReUgionsgeschichte,  187&-78. 

LuciAN,  De  Dea  Syra. 

Philo-Byblius,  In  Eusebius'  Preparatio  Evangelica,  1842. 

PiETSCHMANN,  R.,  Geschichte  der  Phonizier,  1889. 

JUDAISM 

Bacher,  W.,  Die  Agada  der  Tannaiten,  1884-90. 

Die  Agada  der  Palastinensischen  Amoraer,  1892-99. 
Bousset,  a.,  Eschatologie  des  Spatjudentvmis,  1903. 
Charles,  R.  H.,  Critical  History  of  the  Doctrine  of  a  Future  Life,  1899. 
Drummond,  James,  The  Jewish  Messiah,  1877. 
HiLGENFELD,  Adolf,  Die  Jiidische  Apokalyptik,  1848. 
Lazarus,  Moritz,  Ethik  des  Judenthums,  2d  ed.  1901. 
Smend,  Rudolf,  Lehrbuch  der  Alttestamentlichen  Religionsgeschichte,  1893,  2d 

ed.  1899. 
Smith,  W.  Robertson,  The  Prophets  of  Israel,  1882,  2d  ed.  1895. 
Stade,  B.,  Geschichte  Israels,  1885. 

Wellhausen,  J.,  Israelitische  und  Jiidische  Geschichte,  1894,  4th  ed.  1901. 
Articles  in  — 

Zeitschrift  fur  Alttestamentliche  Wissenschaft. 

Zeitschrift  fiir  Wissenschaftliche  Theologie. 

Journal  of  BibUcal  Literature. 

Revue  des  Etudes  Juives. 

CHRISTIANITY 

Aquinas,  Thomas,  Summa  Theologiae,  1260. 

Augustine,  Civitas  Dei,  413-426. 

Barclay,  Robert,  An  Apology,  1675. 

Baur,  F.  C.  v.,  Paulus,  der  Apostel  Jesu  Christi,  1845. 

Die  Christliche  Gnosis,  1835. 
Calvin,  John,  Christianae  Religionis  Institutio,  1536. 


BIBLIOGRAPHY:    HISTORY   OF   RELIGION  655 

Denck,  Hans,  Von  der  Wahren  Liebe,  1527. 

Harnack,  Adolf,  Lehrbuch  der  Dogmengeschichte,  1886,  3d  ed.  1894. 
Geschichte  der  Altchristlichen  Literatur  bis  Eusebius,  1893. 
HoLTZMANN,  H.  J.,  Neutestamentliclie  Theologie,  1896. 
Ignatius  of  Loyola,  Exercitia  Spiritualia,  1523. 
JcELicHER,  A.,  Die  Gleichnisreden  Jesu,  1898. 
Keim,  Theodor,  Geschichte  Jesu  von  Nazara,  1867-1872. 
Kempis,  Thomas  a.,  Imitatio  Christi,  1450. 
Luther,  Martin,  Die  Freiheit  eines  Christen  Menschen,  1520. 
Martineau,  James,  The  Seat  of  Authority  in  Rehgion,  1890. 
More,  Thomas,  Utopia,  1516. 
Newman,  John  H.,  Apologia  pro  vita  sua,  1864. 
Pfleiderer,  Otto,  Das  Urchristentum  und  seine  Schriften,  1902. 
Renan,  J.  E.,  Vie  de  J^sus,  1863. 
Reville,  Albert,  Jesus  de  Nazareth,  1897. 
Reville,  Jean,  Le  Quatrieme  Evangile,  1901. 
RiTSCHL,  Albrecht,  Die  ChristHche  Lehre  von   der  Rechtfertigung  und  Ver- 

sohnung,  1870-1874. 
Schleiermacher,  F.  E.  D.,  Reden  iiber  die  Rehgion,  1799. 
Schmidt,  N.,  The  Prophet  of  Nazareth,  1905. 
Servetus,  Michael,  De  Trinitatis  Erroribus,  1531. 
Strauss,  D.  F.,  Das  Leben  Jesu,  1835. 

ARABIA 

Barton,  G.,  Sketch  of  Semitic  Origins,  1902. 

Dozy,  R.  P.  A.,  Het  Islamisme,  1863. 

Goldziher,  I.,  Muhammadanische  Studien,  1889-90. 

Kremer,  a.  v.,  Geschichte  der  herrschender  Ideen  des  Islam,  1868. 

Macdonald,  D.  B.,  Mushm  Theology,  Jurisprudence  and  Constitutional  Theory, 

1903. 
MuiR,  William,  Life  of  Mahomet,  2d  ed.  1894. 
Mueller,  August,  Der  Islam  in  Morgen-  und  Abendlande,  1885. 
Smith,  W.  Robertson,  The  Religion  of  the  Semites,  1889,  2d  ed.  1894. 
Sprenger,  a..  Das  Leben  und  die  Lehre  des  Mohammed,  1861-65. 
Wellhausen,  J.,  Reste  Arabischen  Heidentums,  2d  ed.  1897. 

EGYPT 

Brugsch,  Heinrich,  Religion  und  Mythologie  der  Alten  Aegypter,  1884. 
Lepsius,  R.,  Le  Pantheon  Egyptien,  1881. 
Lieblein,  J.,  Egyptian  Religion,  1884. 

Maspero,  Gaston,  Etudes  de  mythologie  et  d'arch^ologie  Egyptiennes,  1892- 
98. 
Histoire  Ancienne,  1895-1899. 
Meyer,  Eduard,  Geschichte  des  Alten  Aegyptens,  1887. 
Mueller,  F.  Max,  Egypt,  in  Encyclopaedia  Biblica. 

Pietschmann,  R.,  Der  Aegyptische  Fetischdienst  und  Gotterglaube,  1878. 
Plutarch,  De  Iside  et  Osiride. 

Renouf,  O.  Le  Page,  Lectures  on  the  Origin  and  Growth  of  Religion  as  illus- 
trated by  the  Religion  of  Ancient  Egypt,  1879. 

GREECE 

Gruppe,  p.  O.,  Griechische  Kulte  und  Mythen,  1887. 
Meyer,  Ed.,  Geschichte  des  Alterthums,  1884. 


656         BIBLIOGRAPHY:  HISTORY  OF   RELIGION 

Preller,  Ludwig,  Griechische  Mythologie,  1854,  4th  ed.  1887-98. 

RoHDE,  E.,  Psyche,  2d  ed.  1898. 

RoscHER,  V.  P.,  Lexikon  der  Griechischen  und  Romischen  Mythologie,  1894. 

UsENER,  H.,  Gottemamen,  1896. 

Welcker,  F.  G.,  Griechische  Gotterlehre,  1857-63. 

ROME 

BoissiER,  G.,  La  Religion  Romaine  d'Auguste  aux  Antonins,  1874. 

Preller,  L.,  Romische  Mythologie,  3d  ed.  1881-83. 

UsENER,  H.,  Italische  Mjrthen,  1875. 

WissowA,  Georg,  Die  Religion  und  Kultur  der  Romer,  1901. 

GERMANY   AND   SCANDINAVIA 

Grimm,  J.,  Deutsche  Mythologie,  4th  ed.  1875-78. 
Mannhardt,  W.,  Germanische  Mythen,  1858. 

Die  Gotterwelt  der  Deutschen  und  Nordischen  Volker,  1860. 
Rydberg,  Viktor,  Germanisk  Mythologi,  1889-90. 
Saussaye,  C.  de  la,  Religion  of  the  Teutons,  1902. 
Tacitus,  Germania. 

KELTS 

Arbois  Jubainville,  Introduction  k  I'^tude  de  la  Litt^rature  Celtique,  1883. 

Le  Cycle  Mythologique  Irlandais  et  la  Mythologie  Celtique,  1884. 
BoNwiCK,  J.,  Irish  Druids  and  Old  Irish  Religions,  1894. 
GfiSAR,  Julius,  De  Bello  Gallico,  vi,  13. 

Rhys,  John,  Lectures  on  the  Origin  and  Growth  of  Religion  as  Illustrated  by 
Celtic  Heathendom,  1888. 

SLAVS 

Leqeb,  L.  P.  M.,  Mythologie  Slave,  1901. 


SPECIAL   WORKS   OF   REFERENCE 

The  following  bibliography  covering  Section  A,  Brahmanism  and  Buddhism, 
was  prepared  through  the  courtesy  of  Professor  Hermann  Oldenberg,  of  the 
University  of  Kiel. 

ARYAN   IMMIGRATION   INTO   INDIA 

Geiger,  W.,  Le  Mus^on  (Louvain),  1884. 

ScHRADER,  O.,  Reallexikon  der  Indogermanischen  Altertumskunde,  Strassburg 
1901,  878  pp. 

COMPARATIVE   MYTHOLOGY 

KuHN,  A.,  Die  Herabkunft  des  Feuers  und  des  Gottertranks,  Berlin,  1859. 
Mueller,  F.  Max,  Contributions  to  the  Science  of  Mythology,  2  vols.  London, 

1897. 
Oldenberg,  H.,  Aus  Indien  imd  Iran,  Berlin,  1899. 
Die  Religion  des  Veda,  Berlin,  1894. 

RELIGION   OF   THE   INDO-IRANLA.N   PERIOD 

Darmesteter,  J.,  Ormazd  et  Ahriman,  Paris,  1877. 

Oldenberg,  H.,  Aus  Indien  und  Iran. 

TiELE,  C.  P.,  Geschichte  der  Religion  im  Altertum,  vol.  ii,  part  1.  Gotha,  1898. 

CONNECTION  OF  RESEARCHES  ON  INDIAN  RELIGIONS  WITH 

ETHNOLOGY 

Oldenberg,  H.,  Religion  des  Veda. 
Aus  Indien  und  Iran. 

SUPPOSED   INFLUENCE   OF  INDL/VN  WISDOM   ON   PYTHAGORAS 

ScHROEDER,  LEOPOLD  VON,  Pythagoras  und  die  Inder,  Leipzic,  1884. 

INFLUENCE   ON   NEO-PLATONISM 
Garbe,  R.,  Die  S&mkhya-Philosophie,  Leipzic,  1894. 

CHRISTL^VNITY   AND    BUDDHISM 

Aiken,  Charles  F.,  The  Dhamma  of  Gotama  the  Buddha,  and  the  Gospel  of 

Jesus  the  Christ,  Boston,  1900. 
Bertholet,  a.,  Buddhismus  und  Christentum,  Tubingen  and  Leipzic,  1902. 

Der   Buddhismus   und  seine   Bedeutimg  fiir  unser  Geistesleben, 
Tubingen  and  Leipzic,  1904. 
Eysinga,  G.  a.  van  den  Bergh  van,  Indische  Einflusse  auf  Evangelische  Er- 

zahlungen,  Gottingen,  1904. 
Hopkins,  E.  W.,  India,  Old  and  New,  New  York  and  London,  1901. 
Pischel,  Richard,  Sitzimgsberichte  der  Koniglich  Preussischen  Akademie  der 

Wissenschaften,  1903. 
Schroeder,  L.  von,  Buddhismus  und  Christenthum,  Reval,  1893. 
Seydel,  R.,  Die  Buddhalegende  und  das  Leben  Jesu,  2d  ed.,  Weimar,  1897. 


658        BIBLIOGRAPHY:    HISTORY    OF    RELIGION 

ON  THE   BARLAAM  AND   JOASAPH   ROMANCE 

KtJHN,  E.,  Abhandlungen  der  Bayerischen  Akademie  der  Wissenschaften,  vol.  xx, 
1894. 

THE   KRISHNA   LEGEND 

Barth,  A.,  The  Religions  of  India,  3d  ed.,  London,  1891. 
Hopkins,  E.  W.,  India,  Old  and  New. 

Weber,  A.,  Ueber   die  Krishna   janmAshtami,  Abhandlungen  der   Koniglich 
Preussischen  Akademie  der  Wissenschaften,  1867. 

THEORY   OF   SACRIFICE 

Hubert,  H.,  et  M.  Mauss,  Essai  sur  la  nature  et  la  fonction  du  sacrifice;  Annie 
Sociologique  (Paris),  1898. 

GREEK  PHILOSOPHY  AND   BUDDHISM 

Oldenberg,  H.,  Aus  Indien  und  Iran. 

GENERAL  METHODS  OF  THE  COMPARATIVE  STUDY  OF  RELIGIONS 

Tiele,  C.  p.,  Inleiding  tot  de  Godsdienstwetenschafif,  2  vols.  Amsterdam,  1897- 
1899. 


SPECIAL    WORKS    OF    REFERENCE 

The  following  list  of  special  works  of  reference,  to  accompany  Section  D,  New 
Testament,  was  prepared  through  the  courtesy  of  Professor  Benjamin  W.  Bacon 
of  Yale  University,  and  Professor  Ernest  D.  Burton  of  the  University  of  Chicago. 

Aall,  Geschichte  der  Logosidee,  i,  1896,  ii,  1903. 
Anrich,  Das  antike  Mysterienwesen,  1904. 
Anz,  Zut  Frage  nach  dem  Ursprung  des  Gnosticizmus,  1897. 
Baldensperger,  W.,  Der  Prolog  des  vierten  EvangeUums,  1898. 
Barth,  Fritz,  Die  Hauptprobleme  des  Lebens  Jesu,  1903. 
Baxjr,  F.  C,  Paul,  the  Apostle  of  Jesus  Christ,  1875-76. 
Beyschlag,  W.,  Das  Leben  Jesu,  1893;  and  New  Testament  Theology,  1895. 
BiiASS,  Grammar  of  New  Testament  Greek,  1905. 

BotrssET,  W.,  "Die  ReUgionsgeschichte  und  das  neue  Testament,"  in  Theol. 
Rundschau,  vri,  pp.  353-365. 
Die  Religion  des  Judenthums  im  neutestamentlichen  Zeitalter,  1903. 
BovoN,  Jules,  Th^ologie  du  Nouveau  Testament,  1893-94. 
Brandt,  Die  mandaische  Religion,   1889.     Mandaische  Schriften,  1893,  also 
"Schicksal  der  Seele  nach  mandaischer  imd  persischer  Vorstellimg,"  in  Jahrb.  f. 
prot.  Theol.  xviii,  pp.  405-438,  567-603. 
Briggs,  Driver,  and  Plummer,  eds.  The  International  Critical  Commentary, 

1895 . 

BuRKiTT,  F.  C,  EvangeUon  Da-Mepharreshe,  1905. 

Carman,  "  New  Testament  Use  of  the  Greek  Mysteries,"  Bib.  Sac.  L.  (October, 

1893),  pp.  613-639. 
Charles,  Eschatology,  Hebrew,  Jewish,  and  Christian  (Jowett  Lectures,  1898- 

99). 
Chase,  F.  H.,  The  Credibility  of  the  Book  of  the  Acts  of  the  Apostles,  1902. 
Clarke,  J.  F.,  Ten  Great  Religions  of  the  World,  1871. 

Clemen,  Carl  Paulus,  Sein  Leben  und  Werken,  1904,  and  Die  Apostelgeschichte, 
im  Lichte  der  neueren  Text,  Quellen-  und  historisch-kritischen  Forschungen, 
1905. 
CuMONT,  Textes  et  monuments  figurfe  relatifs  aux  mystdres  de  Mithra,  transl. 

by  McCormack,  1903.     . 
Dalman,  Gustaf,  The  Words  of  Jesus,  considered  in  the  sight  of  Post-Biblical 

Jewish  Writings  and  the  Aramaic  Language,  1902. 
Deissmann,  G.  a.,  Bible  Studies:   Contributions  chiefly  from  Papyri  and  In- 
scriptions, 1901. 
DiETERiCH,  Mithrasliturgie,  1903. 

DoBSCHtTETZ,  Ernst  V.,  Christian  Life  in  the  Primitive  Church,  1904. 
Drummond,  James,  The  Jewish  Messiah,  1877,  and  An  Inquiry  into  the  Character 

and  Authorship  of  the  Fourth  Gospel,  1904. 
Frazer,  The  Golden  Bough,  1900. 

Friedlaender,  Der  vorchristliche  jQdische  Gnosticizmus,  1898. 
Gardner,  Exploratio  Evangelica,  1899,  and  A  Historic  View  of  the  New  Testa- 
ment, 1901. 
Gfroerer,  Jahrhundert  des  Heils,  1838. 

Gregory,  C.  R.,  Tischendorf's  Novum  Testamentum  Graece,  editio  octava  critica 
major,  vol.  iii,  Prolegomena,  1884-94. 


660  SPECIAL   WORKS    OF   REFERENCE 

Grill,  Verbreitung  der  Mithramysterien,  1903. 

GuNKEL,  Schopfung  und  Chaos,  1894,  and  Zum  religionsgeschichtlichen  Verstand- 

niss  des  Neuen  Testaments. 
GxjiLLDUtf  and  Pusey.   Critical  Edition  of  Peshitto. 
Handmann,  Rudolf,  Das  Hebraer-Evangelium,  1888. 

Harnack,  Adolf,  The  Expansion  of  Christianity  in  the  First  Three  Centuries, 
1904-05,  and  Geschichte  der  altchristhchen  Literatur  bis  Eusebius,  1893-1904. 
Harrison,  Prolegomena  to  the  Study  of  Greek  Religion,  1903. 
Hatch,  The  Influence  of  Greek  Ideas  and  Usages  upon  the  Christian  Church 

(Hibbert  Lectures,  1888),  and  Essays  in  Biblical  Greek,  1889. 
HoEFDiNG,  Attis,  seine  My  then  und  sein  Kult,  1903. 
Holtzmann,  H.  J.,  Lehrbuch  der  historisch-kritischen  Einleitung  in  das  Neue 

Testament,  1892. 
Holtzmann,  Oscar,  Neutestamentliche  Zeitgeschichte,  1895. 

The  Life  of  Jesus,  1904. 
Holtzmann,    Lipsius,  Schmiedel,  und   von  Soden,    Hand-Commentar  zum 

Neuen  Testament,  1891-1901. 
Horner,  The  Coptic  Version  of  the  New  Testament,  2  vols.  1898. 
Jevons,  An  Introduction  to  the  History  of  Religion,  1896. 
JtJELicHER,  A.,  Encyclopaedia  Biblica,  s.  v.  "Mystery,"  and  Introduction  to  the 

New  Testament,  1904. 
Keim,  Theodor,  The  History  of  Jesus  of  Nazara,  1876-83. 

Kenyon,  F.  G.,  Handbook  to  the  Textual  Criticism  of  the  New  Testament,  1901. 
Ktjenen,  a.,  National  Religions  and  Universal  Religions  (Hibbert  Lectures, 

1882). 
Lobeck,  Aglaophamus,  1829. 

Mathews,  Shailer,  The  Messianic  Hope  in  the  New  Testament,  1905. 
McGiFFERT,  A.  C,  A  History  of  Christianity  in  the  Apostolic  Age,  1897. 
Meyer,  A.,  Die  modeme  Forschung  iiber  die  Geschichte  des  Urchristenthums, 

1898. 
Meyer,  H.  A.  W.,  Der  kritisch-exegetischer  Kommentar  iiber  das  Neue  Testa- 
ment, 1888-1902. 
MoFFATT,  James,  The  Historical  New  Testament,  1901. 
Paine,  L.  L.,  The  Ethnic  Trinities,  1901. 
Palestine  Exploration  Fund,  Maps  and  Memoirs,  1880-. 

Pfleiderer,  O.,  Das  Christusbild   des    urchristlichen    Glaubens    in    religions- 
geschichtlichen Beleuchtung,  1903,  and  Das  Urchristenthum,  2d  ed.  1903,  and 
Paulinism,  A  Contribution  to  the  History  of  Primitive  Christian  Theology, 
1891. 
Ramsay,  Encyclopaedia  Britannica,  ed.  ix,  s.  v.  "Mysteries." 
Robinson,  Edward,  Biblical  Researches  in  Palestine,  1857-60. 
Rohde,  Psyche,  2d  ed.  1898. 

Sanday,  The  Criticism  of  the  Fourth  Gospel,  1905. 

Saussaye,  Chantepie  de  la,  Lehrbuch  der  Religionsgeschichte,  3d  ed.  1905. 
Schuerer,  History  of  the  Jewish  People  in  the  Time  of  Christ,  Eng.  transl.  1891, 
3d  edition,  German  original,  Geschichte  des  jiidischen  Volkes,  1898-1901;  and 
Das  messianische  Selbstbewusstsein  Jesu  Christi,  1903. 
Scrivener,  Introduction  to  the  Criticism  of  the  New  Testament,  1894. 
Seydel,  Das  Evangelium  Jesu  in  Verhaltniss  zu  der  Buddhasage,  1893. 
Smith,  G.  A.,  Historical  Geography  of  the  Holy  Land,  11th  ed.  1904. 
Soden,  v..  Die  Schriften  des  Neuen  Testaments,  in  ihrer  altesten  erreichbaren 

Textgestalt  hergestellt  auf  Grund  ihrer  Textgeschichte,  1902. 
Spitta,  Die  Apostelgeschichte,  ihre  Quellen  und  deren  geschichtlicher  Werth, 
1891. 


SPECIAL   WORKS    OF    REFERENCE  661 

Stanton,  The  Jewish  and  the  Christian  Messiah,  1886,  and  The  Gospels  as  His- 
torical Documents,  1904. 
Stave,  E.,  Ueber  den  Einfluss  des  Parsismus  auf  das  Judentum,  and  Verwandt- 

schaft  der  Jiidischchristlichen  mit  der  parsischen  Eschatologie. 
Stevens,  G.  B.,  The  Theology  of  the  New  Testament,  1899. 
Stewart,  Hastings,  Bible  Dictionary,  s.  v.  "  Mystery." 
Thayer,  J.  H.,  Greek-English  Lexicon  of  the  New  Testament,  1887. 
TiELE,  Geschichte  der  Religion  im  Alterthum  (German  transl.),  1896. 
TiscHENDORF,  C,  Novum  Testamentum  Graece,  ed.  viii,  1869-72. 
UsENER,  Religionsgeschichtliche  Untersuchungen,  1889. 
Van  Eysinga,  Van  den  Berg,  "  Indische  Einfliisse  auf  evangelische  Erzahlung- 

en,"  in  Forsch.  z.  Relig.  u.  Lit.  Heft.  iv. 
Viteau,  Joseph,  Etude  sur  le  Grec  du  Nouveau  Testament,  1893-96. 
VoLZ,  Judische  Eschatologie  von  Daniel  bis  Akiba,  1903. 

Watkins,  Modem  Criticism  considered  in  its  Relation  to  the  Fourth  Gospel,  1890. 
Weiss,  Bernard,  The  Life  of  Christ,  1883-89,  and  a  Manual  of  Introduction  to 

the  New  Testament,  1889;   and  Das  Neue  Testament,  1902-05. 
Weiss,   Johannes,   Ueber  die  Absicht  und    die  literarischen  Charakter  der 

Apostelgeschichte,  1897. 
Weizsaecker,  Carl,  The  Apostolic  Age  of  the  Christian  Church,  1894-05. 
Wendt,  The  Gospel  according  to  St.  John,  1902. 
Wernle,  Die  synoptische  Frage,   1899,  and  The  Beginnings  of  Christianity, 

1903-04. 
Westcott,  The  History  of  the  Canon  of  the  New  Testament,  1889. 
Winer,  Grammatik  des  neutestamentlichen  Sprachidioms,  Aufl.  8te,  neu  bear- 

beitet  von  P.  W.  Schmiedel,  1894. 
WoBBERMiN,  Religionsgeschichtliche  Studien  zur  Frage  der  Beeinflussung  des 

Urchristentums  durch  das  antike  Mysterienwesen,  1896. 
Wordsworth  and  White.    Novum  Testamentum  Domini  Nostri  Jesu  Christi 

Latine,  pt.  1,  1889-98. 
Wrede,  Charakter  und  Tendenz  des  Johannesevangeliums,  1903. 
Zahn,  Theodor,  Einleitung  in  das  Neue  Testament,  2te  Aufl.,  1900  [Eng.  trans. 

soon  to  be  published];   Geschichte  des  neutestamentlichen  I^inons,  1888-92, 

and  Kommentar  zum  Neuen  Testament,  1903. 


CONTENTS   OF  THE   SERIES 

Volume  I.  History  of  the  Congress;  The  Scientific  Plan  of  the  Congress;  Intro- 
ductory Address;  Department  of  Philosophy  (6  sections);  Department  of 
Mathematics  (3  sections). 

Volume  II.  Department  of  Political  and  Economic  History  (6  sections) ;  Depart- 
ment of  History  of  Law  (3  sections);  Department  of  History  of  Religion 
(5  sections). 

Volume  III.  Department  of  History  of  Language  (8  sections);  Department  of 
History  of  Literature  (7  sections) ;  Department  of  History  of  Art  (3  sections). 

Volume  IV.  Department  of  Physics  (3  sections);  Department  of  Chemistry 
(4  sections) ;  Department  of  Astronomy  (2  sections) ;  Department  of  Sciences 
of  the  Earth  (8  sections). 

Volume  V.  Department  of  Biology  (11  sections);  Department  of  Anthropology 
(3  sections) ;  Department  of  Psychology  (4  sections) ;  Department  of  Socio- 
logy (2  sections). 

Volume  VI.  Department  of  Medicine  (12  sections);  Department  of  Technology 
(6  sections). 

Volume  VII.  Department  of  Economics  (6  sections);  Department  of  Politics 
(5  sections);  Department  of  Jurisprudence  (3  sections);  Department  of 
Social  Sciei|ce  (6  sections). 

Volume  VIII.  Department  of  Education  (5  sections);  Department  of  Religion 
(6  sections). 


^'be  Viittv^itie  pte^^ 

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CAMBRIDGE,  MASS. 

U.S.  A. 


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